Altruistic Relationship Research Articles

Formal insurance and altruism networks

We study how altruism networks affect the demand for formal insurance. Agents with CARA utilities are connected through a network of altruistic relationships. Incomes are subject to a common shock and to a large individual shock, generating heterogeneous damages. Agents can buy formal insurance to cover the common shock, up to a coverage cap. We find that ex-post altruistic transfers induce interdependence in ex-ante formal insurance decisions. We characterize the Nash equilibria of the insurance game and show that agents act as if they are trying to maximize the expected utility of a representative agent with average damages. Altruism thus tends to increase demand of low-damage agents and to decrease demand of high-damage agents. Its aggregate impact depends on the interplay between demand homogenization, the zero lower bound and the coverage cap. We find that aggregate demand is higher with altruism than without altruism at low prices and lower at high prices. Nash equilibria are constrained Pareto efficient.

A new sociality for a solidarity-based society : the altruistic relationships

One should not imagine that the social sciences discovered altruism only when Comte coined the term – understood as a powerful impulse to the intellectual and moral development of humanity towards which the latter must tend as its future state. Indeed, since ancient times, scholars have attempted to explain (cause-effect) and understand (sense and meaning) why in certain situations some men behave positively towards others (altruistic behaviour) while similar situations the same men behave differently. While not claiming to be exhaustive either theoretically or temporally, we will present an overview on the theme through the ideas of some sociologists (Comte, Durkheim, Mauss, and Sorokin) who have contributed the most to shed light to this object of study. We will argue that the rediscovery of altruism can be seen as a new form of sociality between Ego/Alter for a solidarity-based society.

Formal Insurance and Altruism Networks

We study how altruism networks affect the adoption of formal insurance. Agents have private CARA utilities and are embedded in a network of altruistic relationships. Incomes are subject to both a common shock and a large idiosyncratic shock. Agents can adopt formal insurance to cover the common shock. We show that ex-post altruistic transfers induce interdependence in ex-ante adoption decisions. We characterize the Nash equilibria of the insurance adoption game. We show that adoption decisions are substitutes and that the number of adopters is unique in equilibrium. The demand for formal insurance is lower with altruism than without at low prices, but higher at high prices. Remarkably, individual incentives are aligned with social welfare. We extend our analysis to CRRA utilities and to a fixed utility cost of adoption.

Altruistic Relationships, Responsibility, and Sociology: An Attempt at Theoretical Systematization.

The book Beyond the Dichotomy Between Altruism and Egoism (Mangone in Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing Inc., 2020a) raised compelling comments by distinguished scholars. Some of them were, in my opinion, particularly poignant, highlighting both strengths and weaknesses of the elements addressed in the book. I aim to answer the remarks by Roberto Cipriani, Estrella Gualda, Ratiba Hadj-Moussa, Adrian Scribano, and Nikolay Zyuzev. I will leave the strengths aside and focus instead on the aspects that most attracted the reflections of the commentators, which I can summarise in three macro areas: 1) the centrality of the relationship; 2) responsibility and choices; and, finally, 3) the role of sociology. I will attempt to get to the heart of these areas with a theoretical systematization, providing a general answer to the remarks as well as addressing the specific points raised by each commentator.

Plant-beneficial functions and interactions of Bacillus subtilis SL-44 and Enterobacter cloacae Rs-2 in co-culture by transcriptomics analysis.

The development of mixed microbial agents can reduce the use of pesticides and fertilizers in agriculture. However, most previous studies focused only on the overall effects of mixed microbial agents and ignored the interactions between bacteria in mixed systems. In this study, Bacillus subtilis SL-44 and Enterobacter cloacae Rs-2 were used to explore the interactions between two different functional plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR). The plant growth-promotion properties and inhibition rate of Rhizoctonia solani were determined, and the mechanism of the interactions under single and co-culture conditions was elucidated via transcriptomics analysis under single and co-culture conditions. Results showed that the co-culture was not conducive to B. subtilis SL-44 growth. Furthermore, the differentially expressed genes related to B. subtilis SL-44 developmental process and cell differentiation were downregulated by 82.7% and 84.8% respectively. Moreover, among the properties, only siderophore production by the mixed culture was higher than that of single cultures because of the upregulation of the siderophore-related genes of B. subtilis SL-44. In addition, results revealed the altruistic relationship between the two strains, and the chemical and non-chemical signals of their interaction. This study provides unique insights into PGPR interactions and offers guidance for the development and application of mixed microbial agents.

Impact of Social Media on Self-Referral Patterns for Living Kidney Donation.

As the organ-shortage crisis continues to worsen, many patients in need of a kidney transplant have turned to social media to find a living donor. The effect of social media on living kidney donation is not known. The goal of this study is to investigate the influence of social media on those interested in donating a kidney. Self-referrals for living kidney donation from December 2016 to March 2019 were retrospectively reviewed. Age, sex, race, and relationship of individuals petitioned through social media (SM) were compared with those petitioned through verbal communication (VC). Data were analyzed using chi-squared tests, with z tests of column proportions, and multivariable logistic regression. A total of 7817 individuals (53% SM, 36% VC, and 10% other) were self-referred for living kidney donation. The analysis sample included 6737 adults petitioned through SM (n=3999) or VC (n=2738). Half (n=3933) of the individuals reported an altruistic relationship, and 94% of these respondents were petitioned through SM. Although univariate analyses indicated that SM respondents were younger, more likely female, more likely White, and more likely to have directed altruistic intent than those petitioned through VC (all P<0.05), multivariable logistic regression demonstrated that only decreased age, female sex, and relationship were significantly related to likelihood of SM use (all P<0.001). The use of SM to petition living kidney donors is prevalent and accounts for a greater proportion of respondents compared with VC. SM respondents tend to be younger, female, and altruistic compared with VC. Directed altruistic interest in kidney donation is almost exclusively generated through SM.

RETRACTED: Public welfare organization management system based on FPGA and deep learning

Public welfare organization system Promoting social support is one of the government's influence relieving benevolent associations. To qualify as exempt organizations, community or government support, the association exercises should simply replace the network edge, welfare organization is conducive to select another person, and every person should be registering for details. The social ground considered as network partner to the exercise of social, government support element in any case, despite all the affiliation, if the network is advantageous. Costs associated social modernization typically does not include support groups. Long-term support will be used to understand the impact of decisions and related efforts in the political mission exercises. So, the government's social support groups altruistic relationship. A Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), and a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) to improve the throughput of the cellular neural network. Rather, Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) accelerating the depth learning network is not just one reason, but also because of its ability in energy efficiency, the maximum parallelism. In this article, we review recent prior art deeply accelerated learning networks in the FPGA. We stress the importance of using a variety of techniques to improve the acceleration performance of important features. We also offer suggestions for improving the use of FPGA accelerated cellular neural networks. In this paper, research methods represent FPGA-based accelerator's recent trends in depth learning networks. Therefore, this review is expected to be useful in depth study researchers' direct and efficient hardware accelerator future development.

Understanding informal financing

Abstract This paper offers a framework to understand informal financing based on mechanisms to deal with asymmetric information and enforcement. We find that constructive informal financing such as trade credits and family borrowing that relies on information advantages or an altruistic relationship is associated with good firm performance. Underground financing such as money lenders who use violence for enforcement is not. Constructive informal financing is prevalent in regions where access to bank loans is extensive, while its role in supporting firm growth decreases with bank loan availability. International comparisons show that China is not an outlier but rather average in using informal financing.

Understanding Informal Financing

This paper offers a framework to understand informal financing based on mechanisms to deal with asymmetric information and enforcement. We find that constructive informal financing such as trade credits and family borrowing that relies on information advantages or an altruistic relationship is associated with good firm performance. Underground financing such as money lenders who use violence for enforcement is not. Constructive informal financing is prevalent in regions where access to bank loans is extensive, while its role in supporting firm growth decreases with bank loan availability. International comparisons show that China is not an outlier but rather average in using informal financing.

Repeated game analysis of power suppliers based on dynamic coopetition process and slightly altruistic factor

In this paper, based on repeated game theory, the dynamic coopetition game model between power supply enterprises is established to analyze the long-term equilibrium from a more practical point of view. The slightly altruistic factor is used as a measurement of system cooperation degree, and the influence of the variation between slightly altruistic factor and discount rate is considered in the long-term dynamic equilibrium. The results show that only part of coopetition can find the feasible discount rate to maintain long-term equilibrium. The discount rate required by the identical altruistic relationship is relatively low and stable. The degree of altruistic difference between the two sides of the game decides the existence of the discount rate required for maintaining long-term dynamic equilibrium. This paper makes important generalization for the pre-existing equilibrium analysis method of power market and the general repeated game method, and has certain theoretical value and practical significance.

Evolution of root nodule bacteria: Reconstruction of the speciation processes resulting from genomic rearrangements in a symbiotic system

The processes of speciation and macroevolution of root nodule bacteria (rhizobia), based on deep rearrangements of their genomes and occurring in the N₂-fixing symbiotic system, are reconstructed. At the first stage of rhizobial evolution, transformation of free-living diazotrophs (related to Rhodopseudomonas) to symbiotic N₂-fixers (Bradyrhizobium) occurred due to the acquisition of the fix gene system, which is responsible for providing nitrogenase with electrons and reducing equivalents, as well as for oxygen-dependent regulation of nitrogenase synthesis in planta, and then of the nod genes responsible for the synthesis of the lipo- chito-oligosaccharide Nod factors, which induce root nodule development. The subsequent rearrangements of bacterial genomes included: (1) increased volume of hereditary information supported by species, genera (pan-genome), and individual strains; (2) transition from the unitary genome to a multicomponent one; and (3) enhanced levels of bacterial genetic plasticity and horizontal gene transfer, resulting in formation of new genera, of which Mesorhizobium, Rhizobium, and Sinorhizobium are the largest, and of over 100 species. Rhizobial evolution caused by development and diversification of the Nod factor synthesizing systems may result in both increased host specificity range (transition of Bradyrhizobium from autotrophic to symbiotrophic carbon metabolism in interaction with a broad spectrum of legumes) and to its contraction (transition of Rhizobium and Sinorhizobium to "altruistic" interaction with legumes of the galegoid clade). Reconstruction of the evolutionary pathway from symbiotic N₂-fixers to their free-living ancestors makes it possible to initiate the studies based on up-to-date genome screening technologies and aimed at the issues of genetic integration of organisms into supracpecies complexes, ratios of the macro- and microevolutionary mechanisms, and developmetn of cooperative adaptations based on altruistic relationship between the symbiotic partners.

KARACHAY-BALKAR AND AMERICAN TALES AS A MEAN OF PUPILS ECOLOGICAL UPBRINGING

High ecological culture among students is among the priorities of the modern Russian secondary school education. Offering the solution of this actual problem, the author refers to the educational potential of a fairy tale – the ancient folklore genre, originally written for children. Emotional closeness to the children’s mind of fairy-tale material increases its educational effectiveness. In this article as a didactic material 4 Karachay-Balkar and 2 American tales are selected, ideological and thematic center of which is a gentle, reasonable relationship to the objects of nature. The coincidence of motifs in two different systems of ethnic cultures (American and North Caucasus) indicates the generality of human culture, the universality of moral and ethical values that do not depend on geographical factors. The philosophical idea, which is emphasized both in Karachay-Balkar and American tales is mutually beneficial altruistic relationships of nature to man, and man to nature. This idea is vividly expressed in the tales of the American poem “The Song of Hiawatha” and Karachay-Balkar fairy tale “Three Brothers”. As our analysis showed, many tales are constructed in the form of text warning. In such tales, the central character stands offender of a ban, showing undue version of man’s relationship to nature. Judging by the finals of such tales, the offender shall be punished by nature, and his immoral act responds disaster for all mankind. The article deals with such tales, warnings as “The Price of Water”, “About a girl who became the wife of Thunder,” “Son of the Morning Star.” With the appropriate methodological design all these tales may be applied in the system of secondary school as a means of environmental education of students and successfully serve to didactic purposes.

Islamic Values and Nursing Practice in Kuwait.

This qualitative study sought to illuminate the perception among Muslim nurses in Kuwait of the role of Islamic values on their nursing practice. Ethnography, specifically Leininger's small scale ethnonursing design, guided the study. Eighteen male and female Muslim nurses from five countries, who were working as nurses in Kuwait, were interviewed. The interviews were transcribed and examined for themes. Seven themes emerged (1) altruistic relationships as a core value; (2) all care as spiritual care; (3) desire for greater understanding and respect as nurses and as Muslims; (4) professional kinship that transcends culture, religion, and nationality; (5) nursing ethics from divine ethics; (6) religious teachings promoting health; (7) radical acceptance of God's will, balanced with hope of reward. The centrality of the value altruism to nursing care from the Islamic perspective and the apparent seamless integration of care of the spirit with care of the body were significant findings consistent with the literature. The deep longing to be better understood, both as nurses and as Muslims, speaks to needed public education across the spectrum of religious belief and needed strengthening of professional kinship.

Biobank Economics and the “Commercialization Problem”

The economic aspects of biobanking are intertwined with the social and scientific aspects. We describe two problems that structure the discussion about the economics of biobanking and which illustrate this intertwining. First, there is a ‘sustainability problem’ about how to maintain biobanks in the long term. Second, and representing a partial response to the first problem, there is a ‘commercialisation problem’ about how to deal with the voluntary altruistic relationship between participants and biobanks, and the potential commercial relationships that a biobank may form. Social scientists have argued that the commercialisation problem is inadequate as a way to construct the multiple tensions that biobanks must negotiate. We agree that the commercialisation problem is an inadequate framework; turning to alternative accounts of bioeconomy, we suggest that contemporary consideration of the economics of biobanking primarily in terms of participants and their bodily tissue may reproduce the very commodification of science that these scholars critique. We suggest that an alternative conception of the economics of biobanking beyond the logics of commodification, which may thereby allow broader questions about the social and economic conditions and consequences of biobanks to be posed.

What is love? An empirically-based essentialist account

This two-part study investigates new possibilities in our understanding of the nature of love. Evidence collected lends preliminary support to the following contentions: First, Persons’ concepts of human love of various kinds may not be, as widely maintained, Roschian prototypical ones, but may instead be definable, essentialist ones. Second, Foremost among love’s essential characteristics in terms of transcending four different kinds of love (romantic, parental, companionate, and altruistic) may be “Investment in the well-being of the other for his or her own sake.” Third, Persons’ models or prototypes of romantic, parental, companionate, and altruistic relationships may be different from and broader than their essentialist concepts of love itself of each of these kinds.

Altruism and Career Concerns

The paper studies the impact of altruism on Agent’s motivation in the career concerns model. I show that career concerns incentive is lessened by altruism. As a consequence, altruism can decrease effort, though conventional wisdom suggests that effort should always be higher for the more altruistic worker. This means that not only intrinsic motivation can be crowded by extrinsic incentives; crowding effect can go in the opposite direction as well. This emphasizes a new channel of interaction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. The paper also studies the effect of altruism on wage. Interestingly, the model provides an example of winner’s blessing and shows that ambitions can hinder altruistic relationship. The model can be naturally applied to the workplace relationship and to the local public good provision.

Mutually altruistic trends in resources allocation

Solutions to a series of apparent paradoxes arising in problems dealing with resources allocation under mutually altruistic conditions are presented. In particular, Bergstrom's lovers’ dilemma (J. Econ. Perspect. 3 (1989) 165) is dealt with as an explicit example of such apparent paradoxes. Bergstrom's discovery of a transition point in utility functions that express altruistic relationships is shown to apply generally to any non-indifferent relationship (and not necessarily altruistic) between consumers, and to general utility functions.

Social networks in fish

Social network theory underwent rapid development in the 1970s by sociologists and was recently further refined by physicists. Network theory has been applied to systems consisting of interconnected components as different as that of actors in Hollywood, the neural network of the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans, and the US national power grid. Network theory has great potential as a conceptual tool, for example, it can be used to provide quantitative predictions regarding information transmission, spreading of diseases, and the potential for establishing reciprocal altruistic relationships. Conventionally behavioural studies have been restricted to the analysis of social interactions between isolated pairs or small groups of individuals. Here we built up, however, from pair‐wise interactions, the social network of an entire population of guppies (Poecilia reticulata) in Trinidad. We show that guppies have highly structured social networks with significant repeated interactions between male–male, female–female and male–female pairs. Furthermore, sexual segregation within the network is positively correlated with the strength of the social interactions. Finally, individuals were observed to be more variable in their inter‐sexual interactions than their intra‐sexual ones.

Give unto others: genetically unrelated cotton-top tamarin monkeys preferentially give food to those who altruistically give food back

Altruistic food giving among genetically unrelated individuals is rare in nature. The few examples that exist suggest that when animals give food to unrelated others, they may do so on the basis of mutualistic or reciprocally altruistic relationships. We present the results of four experiments designed to tease apart the factors mediating food giving among genetically unrelated cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus), a cooperatively breeding New World primate. In experiment 1 we show that individuals give significantly more food to a trained conspecific who unilaterally gives food than to a conspecific who unilaterally never gives food. The apparent contingency of the tamarins' food-giving behaviour motivated the design of experiments 2-4. Results from all three experiments show that altruistic food giving is mediated by prior acts of altruistic food giving by a conspecific. Specifically, tamarins do not give food to unrelated others when the food received in the past represents the by-product of another's selfish actions (experiments 2 and 3) or when a human experimenter gives them food (experiment 4) as did the unilateral altruist in experiment 1. By contrast, if one tamarin gives another food without obtaining any immediate benefit, then the recipient is more likely to give food in return. Overall, results show that tamarins altruistically give food to genetically unrelated conspecifics, discriminate between altruistic and selfish actions, and give more food to those who give food back. Tamarins therefore have the psychological capacity for reciprocally mediated altruism.

Altruism, agency, and the competitiveness of family firms

AbstractThe core belief among agency theorists is that when a firm is both owned and managed by family members, its governance structure is efficient. We argue that this belief over‐simplifies the complexity of exchanges that occur among the family firm's decision agents, and does not conform to reality. We develop an alternative agency view of family firm governance that accounts for agency problems that are understated in extant agency models. These problems are rooted in the firm's ownership structure, as well as the altruistic relationships that exist between the firm's decision agents. We conclude with four propositions that address the competitive implications of this alternative view. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.