Hasil untuk "Competition"

K. Boulding, J. Bain

Joan V. Robinson

M. Porter

M. Huston, T. Smith

Andrew Caplin, B. Nalebuff

P. Roberts

M. Ullsperger, D. von Cramon

J. Laffont, P. Rey, J. Tirole

D. Coomes, P. Grubb

Yannis Bakos, Erik Brynjolfsson

Qutaiba Ababneh, Rahaf Alqazaq, Ziad Jaradat et al.

Many microbial infections are caused by multiple species. However, little is known about the detailed interactions and mechanisms underlying competition between coexisting pathogens. Acinetobacter baumannii is a major nosocomial pathogen that is often involved in mixed infections. To date, few studies have focused on the interactions between A. baumannii and other common coinfectious microbes. In this study, we aimed to investigate the interspecies competition among clinical A. baumannii isolates with Klebsiella pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. A. baumannii isolates were recovered from 56 patients in three major hospitals in Jordan between 2018 and 2019. The isolates were obtained from various clinical specimens, including sputum, wound, blood, and urine. Clinical isolates of methicillin-resistant S. aureus, P. aeruginosa, and K. pneumoniae were also used. Interactions between A. baumannii isolates and each of the other species were investigated through 168 interspecies competition assays, and each experiment was done in duplicate. The results revealed that A. baumannii outcompeted K. pneumoniae, significantly reducing its growth, with the degree of reduction varying depending on the clinical origin of the A. baumannii isolates. Moreover, the growth of S. aureus was decreased regardless of the A. baumannii clinical origin, with a higher reduction compared to K. pneumoniae. On the other hand, the presence of P. aeruginosa led to a significant decrease in the A. baumannii growth, while the growth of P. aeruginosa was significantly increased after coculture with A. baumannii. The present study provides evidence that the A. baumannii isolates have competitive advantages over both S. aureus and K. pneumoniae. In contrast, P. aeruginosa outcompetes A. baumannii isolates. Our findings provide new insights to identify potential therapeutics to control coinfections.

Supratim Dutta, Ramesh Krishnamurthy

Abstract Intra-specific interactions among top carnivores are among the most intriguing behavioural aspects and essential components of population dynamics. Static interactions pertain to space use, while dynamic interactions involve spatio-temporal patterns influenced by social structure, distribution, mate selection, and density. Previous studies have focused on static interactions, successfully estimating spatial overlap but leading to a knowledge gap of dynamic interaction to be able to compute attraction and avoidance on similar spatio-temporal scales. We fitted VHF and GPS collars to 13 tigers to study the static and dynamic interactions among the reintroduced tiger population in Panna Tiger Reserve. To investigate spatial interactions, we used Autocorrelated Kernel Density Estimator methods. To capture dynamic interactions at different scales, we calculated Benhamou’s Movement Interaction index and a Correlation Coefficient (Cr) at two critical distance thresholds (Δ500m and 100m). We documented 18 and 35 intra-sex dyads for males and females respectively, and 73 inter-sex dyads from 2009 to 2019. We observed high spatial overlap in male*female dyads. Dynamic interactions and similar movement patterns were noted in mother*cub dyads, while male movements were predominantly independent. We evaluated 23 male*female dyads and found moderate to strong dynamic interactions between individuals. Spatial interaction largely depends on home-range shape and size and does not necessarily affect dynamic interaction. Males and females moved independently to avoid intra-guild competition, exhibiting unsynchronized movement patterns. However, interaction was infrequently recorded, primarily during mating. Female siblings showed philopatry and preferred to move jointly before establishing their own territories. Initially, founder females had limited choice for mate selection with only one male, but as more males became available, females exhibited clear and consistent mate selection. This indicates that founder populations for reintroduction should include adequate mate choices.

Ayala Denul, Gilles Pourtois, Tom Loeys et al.

Abstract Error monitoring, a crucial aspect of behavioral regulation, has been studied extensively in cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Lab studies often observe that people become more cautious after both own and others’ errors. Moreover, social error monitoring research suggests that cooperation elicits stronger adaptations to others’ errors than competition. However, these insights primarily stem from controlled reaction time tasks, limiting generalization to real-world social settings. To address this, we investigated whether basketball players become more cautious after missing compared to making shots, and whether these adaptations differ when the miss was by themselves, teammates or opponents. Meta-analyses of four NBA-seasons revealed increased caution in terms of shot distance and angle following missed compared to made shots, with the most pronounced effect after own, next teammates’ and last opponents’ errors. While controlling for rebound shots reduced the effects, the general pattern remained. Additional analyses also revealed a positive correlation between post-error caution and accuracy, suggesting post-error caution may serve to improve shooting accuracy. These findings not only extend cognitive theories from controlled settings to a real-word sport setting, but also provide a crucial understanding of athletes’ social error responses thereby paving the way for research aimed at optimizing this aspect of performance.

Akhtar Sherin

South Asia, with a population of 2.078 billion people (25.29% of the global population),1 is facing challenges in achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 targets, with most countries scoring around 60% on the SDG 3 index. 2  This region, accounting for a substantial share of global health issues, presents challenges that extend beyond its borders, affecting international health policies and economic stability. The region faces a dual burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases (NCDs). In 2019, it accounted for nearly half of all global cases of drug-susceptible tuberculosis and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis.3 By 2023, India (26%) and Pakistan (6.3%) were among the five countries contributing for 56% of global TB cases. 4 Similarly, NCDs, such as diabetes mellitus, stroke, and heart diseases, are highly prevalent in South Asia, with India and Pakistan among the leading contributors to the global diabetes burden. 5-7 Maternal and child health challenges also persist in South Asia, with only 46% of women receiving comprehensive maternal and neonatal health services, with Afghanistan reporting the lowest coverage at 2.8%.8 Antenatal care utilization remains low, with no significant improvement across SAARC countries from 2015 to 2030.9 The region continues to have one of the highest maternal mortality ratios, with significant disparities; for instance, the Maldives reports high antenatal care utilization (96.83%) compared to Bangladesh (47.01%).10  This analysis highlights that, despite individual country efforts to drive change, South Asia has collectively fallen short of achieving its regional health targets. The impact of COVID-19 further exacerbated the situation, emphasizing the urgency of addressing these challenges. Progress remains hindered by many factors like weak health systems, socio-economic inequities, poor governance, environmental challenges, rising disease burden, and barriers to healthcare access and quality. 11-14 Beyond these structural challenges, health progress in South Asia is further adversely affected by poor regional cooperation, driven by geopolitical disputes, religious conflicts, and deep-rooted mistrust among member nations.15,16 Ongoing military tensions between India and Pakistan, along with civil unrest in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, have severely impacted public health initiatives and resource allocation across South Asia. Political instability and regional conflicts disrupt healthcare services by diverting resources from essential medical care, leading to reduced access and underutilization of healthcare facilities. Economic instability further burdens both patients and health systems, as poor-quality care increases out-of-pocket expenses, delays treatment, and worsens health outcomes. Strengthening health infrastructure and ensuring stability are crucial to mitigating these effects and improving healthcare indicators.17,18 The division of South Asia into two separate WHO regions—South-East Asia Region (SEAR) and Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR)—remains a major barrier to regional health collaboration. Influenced by geopolitical tensions, such as Pakistan’s placement in EMRO due to its disputes with India,19 this structure has undermined India-Pakistan health cooperation, limiting collaboration, disease control, and resource sharing. The SEAR-EMRO divide further weakened the region’s COVID-19 response; while India’s vaccine production supported SEAR countries, Pakistan and Afghanistan (EMRO) faced high-cost import dependency and limited access. Disrupted supply chains and lack of cross-border coordination led to delays and deepened disparities.20,21 A unified, regionally grounded approach could strengthen health cooperation, policy integration, and public health outcomes across South Asia. Established in 1985, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) aimed to foster economic growth, social progress, and regional collaboration, including in health. However, geopolitical tensions, particularly between India and Pakistan, have largely rendered it ineffective, with many viewing it as defunct.22 Meanwhile, China’s growing influence in South Asia’s health sector, especially through COVID-19 vaccine diplomacy, has intensified regional competition, challenging India’s "Neighbourhood First" policy.23 Pakistan’s partnership with China through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has expanded into healthcare through the China-Pakistan Health Corridor, promoting bilateral investment and infrastructure development. 24Additionally, Bangladesh and Pakistan have shown signs of diplomatic revival, 53 years after Bangladesh’s independence.25 Given these shifting dynamics, reviving SAARC has become a timely and strategic imperative. While India’s re-engagement remains cautious, there are signs of evolving perspectives amid changing geopolitical and health landscapes.26 Lessons from regional models like the European Union (EU) and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which have successfully pursued collaborative public health strategies despite internal divides, demonstrate that regional cooperation is both feasible and essential.27 Given the current health crises and deep trust deficit among South Asian nations, there is an urgent need for multilateral engagement to pursue the shared goal of health for all South Asians. Countries must set aside political reservations and commit to both short- and long-term strategies, such as establishing a regional health task force, revitalizing the SAARC Development Fund for joint financing, and developing a shared resource framework to strengthen health systems collectively. International support from organizations such as the World Health Organization and UNICEF can further boost these efforts, but the region must first take ownership through self-help and coordinated action. There is also a pressing need to prioritize research on shared health challenges, a trend reflected in leading global journals like BMJ and The Lancet, which have featured special issues and articles on strengthening regional health systems in South Asia.  Health diplomacy must now take the lead—not only to improve healthcare delivery—but to serve as a bridge to peace and cooperation in the region. The active involvement of civil society, media, and public advocacy is vital to holding government’s accountable and driving meaningful change. Now is the time to act—not only for better health—but for the long-term stability and future of South Asia.

Ruguo Fan, Yang Qi, Yitong Wang et al.

Global low-carbon innovation networks face increasing vulnerabilities amid growing geopolitical tensions and technological competition. The interdependent structure of low-carbon innovation networks and the risk propagation dynamics within them remain poorly understood. This study investigates vulnerability patterns by constructing a two-layer interdependent network model based on Chinese low-carbon patent data, comprising a low-carbon collaboration network of innovation entities and a low-carbon knowledge network of technological components. Applying dynamic shock propagation modeling, we analyze how risks spread within and between network layers under various shocks. Our findings reveal significant differences in vulnerability distribution: the knowledge network consistently demonstrates greater susceptibility to cascading failures than the collaboration network, reaching complete system failure, while the latter maintains partial resilience, with resilience levels stabilizing at approximately 0.64. Critical node analysis identifies State Grid Corporation as a vulnerability point in the collaboration network, while multiple critical knowledge elements can independently trigger system-wide failures. Cross-network propagation follows distinct patterns, with knowledge-network failures consistently preceding collaboration network disruptions. In addition, propagation from the collaboration network to the knowledge network showed sharp transitions at specific threshold values, while propagation in the reverse direction displayed more gradual responses. These insights suggest tailored resilience strategies, including policy decentralization approaches, ensuring technological redundancy across critical knowledge domains and strengthening cross-network coordination mechanisms to enhance low-carbon innovation system stability.

Monika Skrzypiec-Spring, Andrzej Pokrywka, Adam Szeląg et al.

<b>Background:</b> Chronic autoimmune thyroiditis, also known as Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (HT) or chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis whose pathophysiology includes both cellular (T-cell mediated) and humoral (B-cell mediated) immune responses, leads to the destruction of thyroid follicular cells and progressive fibrosis of the thyroid gland. While hypothyroidism is a common autoimmune disease, athletes may experience unique challenges related to its diagnosis and management within the context of training programme, competition and anti-doping regulations. In turn, it is known that moderate physical exercise can have a positive effect on the immune system, while excessive exercise can cause unfavourable changes in this system. Therefore, we aimed (1) to identify the interplay between physical activity and autoimmune thyroid disease, (2) to quantify changes in thyroid function associated with physical activity, and (3) to explain the underlying mechanisms of autoimmune thyroiditis in athletes. <b>Methods:</b> The medical database PubMed/MEDLINE was searched in the time period 2004–2025, where 12 publications met the inclusion criteria and were ultimately included for further evaluation according to the RAMESES (Realist and Meta-narrative Evidence Syntheses: Evolving Standards). <b>Results:</b> The reviewed studies have clearly indicated that physical exercise has a beneficial effect on thyroid function, and two studies reported that non-excessive physical exercise leads to a decrease in TPO-Ab concentrations. <b>Conclusions:</b> The beneficial effect of physical exercise on thyroid function and immune response underlines the need for further well-designed studies to formulate specific guidelines for patients with HT, as well as for athletes with autoimmune thyroid disease. Similarly, there is a need to evaluate the prevalence of thyroid hormone use among amateur and professional athletes in order to establish prevention strategies.

Kiho Yoon

With a multilateral vertical contracting model of media markets, we examine upstream competition and contractual arrangements in content provision. We analyze the trade of content by the Nash bargaining solution and the downstream competition by the Hotelling location model. We characterize the equilibrium outcomes and the contractual arrangements for various vertical structures. We show that the possibility of exclusive contracts rises when the value of the premium content increases, the degree of horizontal differentiation in the downstream market decreases, the importance of advertising revenue decreases, and the relative bargaining power of upstream firm decreases.

Shankar Gangisetty, Abdul Wasi, Shyam Nandan Rai et al.

The recent surge in the vehicle market has led to an alarming increase in road accidents. This underscores the critical importance of enhancing road safety measures, particularly for vulnerable road users like motorcyclists. Hence, we introduce the rider intention prediction (RIP) competition that aims to address challenges in rider safety by proactively predicting maneuvers before they occur, thereby strengthening rider safety. This capability enables the riders to react to the potential incorrect maneuvers flagged by advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). We collect a new dataset, namely, rider action anticipation dataset (RAAD) for the competition consisting of two tasks: single-view RIP and multi-view RIP. The dataset incorporates a spectrum of traffic conditions and challenging navigational maneuvers on roads with varying lighting conditions. For the competition, we received seventy-five registrations and five team submissions for inference of which we compared the methods of the top three performing teams on both the RIP tasks: one state-space model (Mamba2) and two learning-based approaches (SVM and CNN-LSTM). The results indicate that the state-space model outperformed the other methods across the entire dataset, providing a balanced performance across maneuver classes. The SVM-based RIP method showed the second-best performance when using random sampling and SMOTE. However, the CNN-LSTM method underperformed, primarily due to class imbalance issues, particularly struggling with minority classes. This paper details the proposed RAAD dataset and provides a summary of the submissions for the RIP 2024 competition.

W. Roeger

COMFORT FATIMOH SHEIDU, IRORO S. IZU

This study investigates the link connecting armed conflict and food insecurity in Nigeria's North Central region. Due to resource competition, political and ethnic tensions, historical grievances, and religious extremism, the region has seen protracted armed conflicts. Food security has declined as an outcome of disruptions in agriculture, infrastructure, and market systems. Considering this, the purpose of this study is to shed light on the many linkages between food insecurity and armed conflicts in Nigeria's North Central region and also to suggest measures to address the challenges to enhancing food security conditions in the troubled region's armed conflict-affected settings. Therefore, unpacking the link between armed conflict-affected settings and various aspects of food insecurity is required. Data were gathered and examined in order to ascertain the current state of knowledge, study, and focus on various aspects of armed conflict and their disastrous effects on food insecurity in the region while using a scoping review technique to investigate the link between armed conflict and food insecurity concerns in Nigeria's north central region. The findings will help policymakers, practitioners, and researchers involved in conflict resolution and food security initiatives better understand the complex dynamics of armed conflict and food insecurity in the region. This research is critical for developing context-specific policies and interventions to tackle the challenges faced by conflict-affected communities while also promoting long-term peace and food security in Nigeria's North Central region.