The spatial structure of populations may promote the emergence and maintenance of cooperation. Cooperation in the prisoner's dilemma is favored under specific update rules in evolutionary graph theory models with one individual per node of a graph, but this effect vanishes in models with well-mixed demes connected by migrations under soft selection. In contrast, experiments and models involving cycles of growth, merging and dilution have shown that spatial structure can favor cooperation. Here, we reconcile these findings by studying deme-structured populations under growth-merging-dilution dynamics, corresponding to a clique (fully connected graph) under hard selection. We obtain analytical conditions for the cooperator fraction to increase during deterministic logistic growth, and to increase on average under dilution-growth-merging cycles, in the weak selection regime. Furthermore, we analytically express the fixation probability of cooperators under weak selection, yielding a criterion for cooperative mutants to have a higher fixation probability than neutral ones. Finally, numerical simulations show that stochastic growth further promotes cooperation. Overall, hard selection is essential for cooperation to be promoted in deme-structured populations.
We consider the cooperative elements that arise in the design of public goods, such as transportation policies and infrastructure. These involve a variety of stakeholders: governments, businesses, advocates, and users. Their eventual deployment depends on the decision maker's ability to garner sufficient support from each of these groups; we formalize these strategic requirements from the perspective of cooperative game theory. Specifically, we introduce non-transferable utility, linear production (NTU LP) games, which combine the game-theoretic tensions inherent in public decision-making with the modeling flexibility of linear programming. We derive structural properties regarding the non-emptiness, representability and complexity of the core, a solution concept that models the viability of cooperation. In particular, we provide fairly general sufficient conditions under which the core of an NTU LP game is guaranteed to be non-empty, prove that determining membership in the core is co-NP-complete, and develop a cutting plane algorithm to optimize various social welfare objectives subject to core membership. Lastly, we apply these results in a data-driven case study on service plan optimization for the Chicago bus system. As our study illustrates, cooperation is necessary for the successful deployment of transportation service plans and similar public goods, but it may also have adverse or counterintuitive distributive implications.
In various ecosystems and human societies, living organisms and systems often exhibit cooperative and synchronous behaviors during survival. Recently, co-evolutionary models of cooperation and synchronization have shed light on the underlying mechanisms driving such behaviors, offering an intriguing avenue for studying these phenomena. However, current research predominantly focuses on a point-strategy decision mode, where each individual is limited to taking the same actions towards its neighbors. Such an assumption implies that an individual is unable to differentiate its neighbors and adjust its strategy accordingly, making it difficult to capture the complexity and diversity of interactive behaviors observed in reality. To this end, we introduce the interaction mode based on the edge-strategy and investigate how synchronization and cooperation co-evolve under interaction diversity. Specifically, we explore a scenario in which individuals can adopt different strategic decisions toward their neighbors based on their differences, thereby extending the traditional point strategy. Our research clarifies the positive role of interaction diversity in alleviating the evolutionary Kuramoto’s dilemma. Moreover, it provides new insights and ideas for comprehending the influence of edge-strategy on the co-evolution of cooperative and synchronous behaviors.
Hitoshi Yamamoto, Isamu Okada, Tatsuya Sasaki
et al.
Abstract The evolution of cooperation through indirect reciprocity is a pivotal mechanism for sustaining large-scale societies. Because third parties return cooperative behaviour in indirect reciprocity, reputations that assess and share these third parties’ behaviour play an essential role. Studies on indirect reciprocity have predominantly focused on the costs associated with cooperative behaviour, overlooking the costs tied to the mechanisms underpinning reputation sharing. Here, we explore the robustness of social norms necessary to secure the stability of indirect reciprocity, considering both the costs of reputation and the resilience against perfect defectors. Firstly, our results replicate that only eight social norms, known as the ‘leading eight,’ can establish a cooperative regime. Secondly, we reveal the robustness of these norms against reputation costs and perfect defectors. Our analysis identifies four norms that exhibit resilience in the presence of defectors due to their neutral stance on justified defection and another four that demonstrate robustness against reputation costs through their negative evaluation of unjustified cooperation. The study underscores the need to further research how reputational information is shared within societies to promote cooperation in diverse and complex environments.
Worker-Robot Cooperation is a new industrial trend, which aims to sum the advantages of both the human and the industrial robot to afford a new intelligent manufacturing techniques. The cooperative manufacturing between the worker and the robot contains other elements such as the product parts and the manufacturing tools. All these production elements must cooperate in one manufacturing workcell to fulfill the production requirements. The manufacturing control system is the mean to connect all these cooperative elements together in one body. This manufacturing control system is distributed and autonomous due to the nature of the cooperative workcell. Accordingly, this article proposes the holonic control architecture as the manufacturing concept of the cooperative workcell. Furthermore, the article focuses on the feasibility of this manufacturing concept, by applying it over a case study that involves the cooperation between a dual-arm robot and a worker. During this case study, the worker uses a variety of hand gestures to cooperate with the robot to achieve the highest production flexibility
Abstract Imitation is an important learning heuristic in animal and human societies. Previous explorations report that the fate of individuals with cooperative strategies is sensitive to the protocol of imitation, leading to a conundrum about how different styles of imitation quantitatively impact the evolution of cooperation. Here, we take a different perspective on the personal and external social information required by imitation. We develop a general model of imitation dynamics with incomplete information in networked systems, which unifies classical update rules including the death-birth and pairwise-comparison rule on complex networks. Under pairwise interactions, we find that collective cooperation is most promoted if individuals neglect personal information. If personal information is considered, cooperators evolve more readily with more external information. Intriguingly, when interactions take place in groups on networks with low degrees of clustering, using more personal and less external information better facilitates cooperation. Our unifying perspective uncovers intuition by examining the rate and range of competition induced by different information situations.
Cooperative localization is an important technique in environments devoid of GPS-based localization, more so in underwater scenarios, where none of the terrestrial localization techniques based on radio frequency or optics are suitable due to severe attenuation. Given the large swaths of oceans and seas where autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) operate, traditional acoustic positioning systems fall short on many counts. Cooperative localization (CL), which involves sharing mutual information amongst the vehicles, has thus emerged as a viable option in the past decade. This paper assimilates the research carried out in AUV cooperative localization and presents a qualitative overview. The cooperative localization approaches are categorized by their cooperation and localization strategies, while the algorithms employed are reviewed on the various challenges posed by the underwater acoustic channel and environment. Furthermore, existing problems and future scope in the domain of underwater cooperative localization are discussed.
Tatsuya Sasaki, Satoshi Uchida, Isamu Okada
et al.
Indirect reciprocity is one of the major mechanisms for the evolution of cooperation in human societies. There are two types of indirect reciprocity: upstream and downstream. Cooperation in downstream reciprocity follows the pattern, 'You helped someone, and I will help you'. The direction of cooperation is reversed in upstream reciprocity, which instead follows the pattern, 'You helped me, and I will help someone else'. In reality, these two types of indirect reciprocity often occur in combination. However, upstream and downstream reciprocity have mostly been studied theoretically in isolation. Here, we propose a new model that integrates both types. We apply the standard giving-game framework of indirect reciprocity and analyze the model by means of evolutionary game theory. We show that the model can result in the stable coexistence of altruistic reciprocators and free riders in well-mixed populations. We also found that considering inattention in the assessment rule can strengthen the stability of this mixed equilibrium, even resulting in a global attractor. Our results indicate that the cycles of forwarding help and rewarding help need to be established for creating and maintaining diversity and inclusion in a society.
Cooperative organization as a people-oriented institution brings great benefits to the agricultural community. As a result, the intention to participate in such an institution is very important. Therefore, this research was conducted to explain the factors affecting the willingness of farmers to participate in collective and cooperative activities. In this research, descriptive-correlational research method and survey technique was used to collect data. The statistical population of the study included all farmers in Mazandaran province, including 336532 people that Using Krejcie and Morgan sampling table, the number of samples was determined and using multi-stage random sampling method, 333 people were selected as the sample. The validity of the researcher-made questionnaire was confirmed by several experts and faculty members of agricultural extension and education and its reliability was confirmed using Cronbach's alpha coefficient. The data obtained through the questionnaire were analyzed using descriptive statistics (such as frequency, percentage, mean) and inferential statistics (correlation coefficients and Chi-square, stepwise regression and factor analysis). The results showed that the studied farmers have a moderate willingness to cooperate with other farmers. Attitudes toward teamwork and the number of visiting to the experts are also two variables that explain 36% of the changes in farmers' willingness to participate in cooperatives. Improving attitudes, increasing the number of visiting to experts and removing barriers to participation can increase farmers' willingness to participate in cooperative and group activities.
The Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare, in order to gain public trust and achieve its mission, including organizing the cooperative sector and promoting efficiency in cooperatives, can establish good governance components through the use of strategic communications. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of strategic relationships on the establishment of good governance theory in the ministry and provide a favorable model And in terms of practical purpose and method of data collection is descriptive and its method is survey. A questionnaire was used to test the research hypotheses and Cronbach's alpha index was used to assess the reliability of the questionnaire. The results of this study show that there is a linear relationship between strategic communication and good governance components including transparency, accountability, participation, accountability, rule of law and flexibility, and the priorities of good governance components in this ministry are establishing transparency and accountability . Also, strategic relations in the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare in order to implement the theory of good governance need to be established with characteristics such as: leadership-based unity, credibility, dialogue-oriented, based on concerted effort and synergy Being inclusive, result-oriented, providing a deep understanding of the country, being forward-looking and the result of a cycle of evaluation, review and redesign.
Today, with the stability of businesses in cooperatives, the problem of unemployment and bankruptcy of many cooperatives can be addressed. Providing a model of business sustainability is one of the effective factors in the success and sustainability of cooperatives. The aim of this study was to design a business sustainability model with an entrepreneurship development approach in the cooperative sector of Hamedan province. This research is quantitative-qualitative (mixed) in terms of applied-development purpose and research method and research framework. Participants in the quality section of some of the successful cooperative managers of the country and expert professors in the field of business in a purposefully available way based on theoretical saturation of 12 And in the quantitative part of the statistical population, 360 managers of all successful cooperatives in the country, whose participants were randomly selected based on Morgan and Krejcie table, 130 people. The results of qualitative analysis showed that this model included six categories including causal conditions, central category, contextual factors, intervening conditions, strategies and consequences, and 82 factors were identified as designing a business sustainability model with an entrepreneurial development approach. It was also found that the effect of causal conditions on the central category and the central category on the strategies is direct and the effect of strategies on the outcomes, contextual factors and intervening conditions on the strategies is indirect. In a small part, it was found that the model has a good fit
Given the importance of land consolidation plans in the development and improvement of agricultural status in terms of increasing agricultural production, improving income levels of farmers, and production cooperatives formation, it is necessary to identify barriers and obstacles to implement this plans and to remove them. Therefore, the present study aimed to analyze the barriers and obstacles of land consolidation and production cooperatives formation in rural areas of Zarghan County. The study population was Zarghan regional farmers located in Fars province that 38 of them were selected by purposeful and snowball sampling. Research data were collected using semi-structured interviews and analyzed in three stages: open coding, axial coding, and selective coding with the help of MAXQDA software and classified into four main barriers. These include agricultural barriers, administrative barriers, economic barriers, and socio-cultural barriers. Finally, according to the results, suggestions were made to develop this project.
We show that in a situation where individuals have a choice between a costly institute and a free institute to perform a collective action task, the existence of a participation cost promotes cooperation in the costly institute. Despite paying for a participation cost, costly cooperators, who join the costly institute and cooperate, can out-perform defectors, who predominantly join a free institute. This, not only promotes cooperation in the costly institute but also facilitates the evolution of cooperation in the free institute. A costly institute out-performs a free institute when the profitability of the collective action is low. On the other hand, a free institute performs better when the collective action's profitability is high. Furthermore, we show that in a structured population, when individuals have a choice between different institutes, a mutualistic relation between cooperators with different institute preferences emerges and helps the evolution of cooperation.
We report on an experimental study that was set up to reveal differences in the tendencies of men and women to cooperate in same-sex interactions. Former studies on this subject were mostly conducted in industrialized modern societies. In contrast, we tested the cooperation tendency among Buryats, a people from Southern Siberia of Mongolian origin. All subjects participated in (1) one iterated Public Goods Game in a group of four individuals of the same sex and (2) four one-shot Prisoner’s Dilemma games with different partners of the same sex. The interactions were in a face-to-face setting, but any intentional communication during the experiments was prohibited. We found that Buryat men were more cooperative than Buryat women in both types of same-sex interactions. In particular, the fraction of men employing a strategy of unconditional cooperation in the iterated Public Goods Game was much higher (36%) than the fraction of unconditional cooperators among women (21%). In general, the behavior of men was less context dependent than the behavior of women. In both sexes, individuals who were more cooperative in one type of game tended to be more cooperative in the other type of game. Although direct communication was prohibited, the interaction partners in the Prisoner’s Dilemma games employed the same strategy much more frequently than expected by chance. We conclude that, even among strangers, the exchange of subtle signals is sufficient to coordinate strategic decisions.
Humans are uniquely cooperative and form crucial short- and long-term social bonds between individuals that ultimately shape human societies. The need for such intense cooperation may have provided a particularly powerful selection pressure on the emotional and communicative behaviours regulating cooperative processes, such as guilt. Guilt is a social, other-oriented moral emotion that promotes relationship repair and pro-sociality. For example, people can be more lenient towards wrongdoers who display guilt than towards those who do not. Here, we examined the social consequences of guilt in a novel experimental setting with pairs of friends differing in relationship quality. Pairs of participants took part in a cooperative game with a mutual goal. We then induced guilt in one of the participants and informed the other participant of their partner's wrongdoing. We examined the outcome using a dictator game to see how they split a joint reward. We found that guilty people were motivated to repair wrongdoing regardless of friendship. Observing guilt in others led to a punishment effect and a victim of wrongdoing punished close friends who appeared guilty more so than acquaintances. We suggest, therefore, that guilt has a stronger function between close friends as the costs of relationship breakdown are greater. Relationship context, therefore, is crucial to the functional relevance of moral emotions.
We analyze the duration of large economic declines and provide a theory of delayed recovery. We show theoretically that uncertain post-recovery incomes lead to a commitment problem which limits the possibility of cooperation in ethnically heterogeneous countries. Strong constraints on the executive solve this problem by reducing the uncertainty associated with cooperative behavior. We test the model using standard data on linguistic heterogeneity and detailed data on ethnic power configurations. Our findings support the central theoretical prediction: countries with more constrained political executives experience shorter economic declines. The effect is large in ethnically heterogeneous countries but virtually non-existent in homogeneous societies. Our main results are robust to a variety of perturbations regarding the estimation method, the estimation sample, measures of heterogeneity, and measures of institutions.