Conflict Occurrence Research Articles

Ethnic diversity and conflict in sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from refugee-hosting areas

This study explores how forced migration affects ethnic diversity and conflict in 23 Sub-Saharan African countries from 2005 to 2016. Using UNHCR data on refugee camp locations, we predict changes in local ethnic diversity. By integrating Afrobarometer and Ethnic Power Relations-Ethnicity of Refugees datasets, we analyze the link between refugee-induced diversity and conflict occurrence. Findings indicate that refugee-induced polarization increases the risk of local violence, while fractionalization has a mitigating effect. Notably, the number of refugees does not impact the likelihood of conflict; instead, alterations in ethnic diversity, especially polarization, emerge as the primary driver of conflict.

УПРАВЛЕНИЕ КОНФЛИКТАМИ В ПРОФЕССИОНАЛЬНОЙ ДЕЯТЕЛЬНОСТИ ВРАЧА

The article considers the urgent problem of increasing conflict situations in the professional activity of a doctor, namely, conflicts between patients and health workers in the process of providing medical care. The effectiveness of the professional activity of a health worker directly depends on professionally significant qualities, including how well the health worker builds communicative interaction with patients, their immediate social environment, colleagues, and management. The purpose of providing a complete review is to analyze the materials of domestic and foreign studies on conflict management in medical activities. The search for materials on this problem was carried out in the scientific electronic library (SEL) eLIBRARY.RU (https://elibrary.ru/defaultx.asp) and in the Science Direct search system, which includes publications indexed in the Scopus and Web of Science databases. The main objective reasons and subjective factors of conflict occurrence in the conditions of medical care of the population are considered. Based on the results of systematization of the received information, ways of conflict resolution in medical activity are proposed, the necessity of formation of skills of methods of effective partnership interaction with patients and colleagues, competencies of the doctor in the field of psychological and pedagogical activity is shown.

A159: Study of Language Violence in Campus Sport Games from the Perspective of Social Conflict Theory

Background/Purpose: Campus sports, as a key component of Chinese sports, is a crucial part of the process of building a leading sports country. However, many verbal conflicts occurring in collegiate sports events have damaged the image of athletics and students’ physical and mental health, exerting negative influences on on-campus sports. Therefore, to reduce incidents in campus sports events and to keep school sports developing, this paper intended to investigate the phenomenon of language violence in campus sports events, analyze the current situation and causes of language violence incidents, explore the functions of language violence incidents, and propose suggestions to decrease the risks brought by it. Method: The study was conducted quantitatively and qualitatively. A total of 164 undergraduates from different majors at S University were selected as the research participants. Questionnaires, observations, and interviews were used to explore the general situation of language violence in basketball matches at this university. Based on these methods, this investigation discussed the causes and functions of language violence in basketball games from the perspective of Social Conflict Theory. Results: This study has three main aspects of findings. Firstly, it found that verbal violent conflict occurrence in S University remains high. These conflicts are more likely to happen among male students, but the issues among female students cannot be ignored. Secondly, language violence can be divided into two types: out-group conflict and in-group conflict, both influenced by immaterial and material causes. For the former, gamesmanship is the primary reason, while for the latter, the dominant cause is differing opinions about judgment and arrangement. Thirdly, language violence has two inverse effects. On one hand, the negative consequence is similar to previous studies, as verbal conflict during games can escalate into physical conflicts. On the other hand, the positive side includes the integration of groups, the promotion of new institutions, and acting as a “social safety valve.” Finally, according to the findings, this research suggests that language violence in college sports games can be alleviated by encouraging positive group values and improving imbalanced resource allocation. Conclusion/Discussion: Through the investigation, factors causing language violence conflicts and the possible outcomes were analyzed via Social Conflict Theory, and some feasible suggestions for students and administrators were provided. For future studies, it is worthwhile to choose other independent variables, such as players’ positions on the court, to examine more underlying factors.

War and warming: The effects of climate change on military conflicts in developing countries (1995–2020)

Numerous studies have explored the links between climate change and military conflicts. This study delves into the types and intensities of conflicts likely caused by climate change in developing countries from 1995 to 2020. Through a country-year panel analysis, it isolates the impact of rising global greenhouse gas emissions on conflict occurrence. Findings consistently show a significant positive association between greenhouse gas emissions and military conflicts, especially low-intensity and internationalized intrastate conflicts. Additional tests confirm these results' robustness, including heterogeneity analysis, substitution of key explanatory variables, sensitivity analysis, and alternative analytical methods. The analysis highlights how environmental scarcity due to climate change drives small-scale conflicts within countries, while geopolitics and environmental scarcity also lead to internationalized intrastate wars. The study recommends that developed countries and the international community support developing countries in building resilience against climate change and advocates for collaborative efforts to mitigate its adverse effects on global security.

Observation of conflict triggers conflict adaptation.

The conflict monitoring theory posits that the simultaneous activation of incompatible responses in the current trial leads to response conflict. Conflict occurrence signals to enhance attention to the target stimulus, reduce attention to distracting stimuli, and ultimately lead to conflict adaptation (i.e., reduced interference effect after conflict trials compared to nonconflict trials). However, this theory does not explicitly assume whether the involvement of response execution is necessary in the process of conflict occurrence. Research on the negative emotion theory suggests that even in the absence of response execution, incompatible response representations can induce conflict. Our present study aimed to provide direct behavioural evidence regarding whether conflict activated without response execution is sufficient to trigger conflict adaptation. In a word-colour Stroop task, this study employed the LOOK-to-DO transition design, in which participants refrained from responding in half of the trials (LOOK trials) and responded with key presses in the other half (DO trials). Across three experiments, we controlled for feature integration and contingency learning and manipulated the stimulus presentation duration in the previous trial. The results indicated a significant conflict adaptation effect in reaction time when the stimulus presentation duration was shorter in the previous trial. This finding suggested that in a confounding-minimal design with no response execution in the previous trial, conflict triggers control adjustments and leads to conflict adaptation. This finding aligns with and further elaborates on the original conflict monitoring theory by demonstrating that response execution is not a necessary condition for the generation of response conflict. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Assessing factors influencing the occurrence of traffic conflicts: a vehicle-by-vehicle approach

This research analyzes the main factors that lead to the occurrence of traffic conflicts on the urban highway Autopista Central in Santiago, Chile. We propose a vehicle-by-vehicle approach in which we estimate the probability that each vehicle passing through each gate of Autopista Central has a conflict. This approach allows us to study variables at an individual level that have not been analyzed before using full real-world data, such as driver (age and sex) and vehicle information (type and age). We propose a Pseudo Time-to-Collision (PTTC) as a surrogate safety measure, defining different critical PTTC thresholds for each gate. Subsequently, a logistic regression model is built to understand the input variables’ influence on the probability of conflict occurrence. Our results show that men and young drivers are more likely to have a conflict. In addition, the age of the car is negatively correlated with the occurrence of conflicts.

Airspace Congestion, flow Relations, and 4-D fundamental Diagrams for advanced urban air mobility

This paper develops theoretical macroscopic air traffic flow models that relate vehicle density and spacing to traffic flow (throughput) measures under different operational parameters for unstructured airspace in the Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) context. Recognizing the role of conflicts in air traffic flow, we relate vehicle density to the frequency of conflict occurrence in airspace using a gas-kinetic analogy. The number of conflicts is then related to vehicle speeds using an average speed loss per conflict. The effects of the speed reductions are coupled with density to explore the fundamental diagram between flow rate and density. The theoretical models are tested and validated with simulated results for a number of parameter levels. The models can be applied for quick predictions of future traffic flow conditions, which will be especially useful for operators or air traffic flow management systems. The theoretical and simulated findings also provide operational and policy insights for AAM operators, planners, and modelers. Notable insights include the critical role of aircraft density in air traffic flow and the variable impact of that density on traffic flow behavior. AAM operators and planners will need to closely manage the airspace density to avoid large numbers of conflicts simultaneously and maintain acceptable travel times and throughputs. Key operational parameters such as aircraft spacing requirements and maximum aircraft speeds were also found to have significant impacts on traffic flow behavior, and offer policy avenues for managing air traffic.

Developing rear-end and side-swipe conflict prediction models for urban signalized intersections under disordered traffic conditions

A Traffic Conflict Technique is a proactive approach that identifies observable critical vehicle interactions (conflict) that could have led to a crash. This paper develops conflict-based safety performance functions (SPFs) to predict the number of traffic conflicts at the signal cycle level in mixed traffic conditions with poor lane discipline (disordered traffic conditions). 9586 vehicle trajectories were extracted from traffic video data collected from 4 signalized intersections in India. Critically interacting vehicle pairs were estimated using Time to Collision (TTC). The conventional surrogate measure is modified into a 2-dimensional surrogate approach which captures the conflicts by incorporating the vehicle dimension, heading direction, position, speed, and acceleration in the longitudinal and lateral direction between vehicles. Rear-end and side-swipe conflicts are identified at varying threshold values to incorporate severity. Rear-end conflict SPFs show that higher conflict occurrence is expected during signal cycles with more traffic volume, higher vehicle arrival speed, more right-turning traffic, and a lower platoon ratio. At severe threshold (TTC ≤ 1 s), one 1 m/s increase in speed of vehicle increases the expected number of rear-end conflicts by 6%. Furthermore, SPFs show that severe side-swipe conflicts are expected during signal cycles with more lane-changing maneuvers and right-turning vehicles. For TTC ≤ 1 s, one unit increase in the number of lane changes would increase the expected number of sides-wipe conflicts by 7.9%. The finding of this study can be most beneficially used for arriving at policy measures and improving the safety of signalized intersections in disordered traffic conditions.

Testing the power-law hypothesis of the interconflict interval

War is an extreme form of collective human behaviour characterized by coordinated violence. We show that this nature of war is substantiated in the temporal patterns of conflict occurrence that obey power law. The focal metric is the interconflict interval (ICI), the interval between the end of a conflict in a dyad (i.e. a pair of states) and the start of the subsequent conflict in the same dyad. Using elaborate statistical tests, we confirmed that ICI samples compiled from the history of interstate conflicts from 1816 to 2014 followed a power-law distribution. We then demonstrate that the power-law properties of ICIs can be explained by a hypothetical model assuming an information-theoretic formulation of the Clausewitz thesis on war: the use of force is a means of interstate communication. Our findings help us to understand the nature of wars between regular states, the significance of which has increased since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The shock of armed conflict on research and development investment: empirical evidence from cross-country data

ABSTRACT Research and Development(R&D) investments could be significantly impacted by increased social instability and economic uncertainty as a result of frequent armed conflicts. Therefore, based on cross-country panel data from 1989 to 2021, this paper develops system GMM, panel threshold and quantile models to explore the shocks on R&D investment from the different consequences of armed conflict. Results show that armed conflict's occurrence, deaths and displacements discourage investment in R&D capital and R&D personnel. Armed conflict's occurrence generates a stronger negative shock on R&D investment in Europe and the Americas than in Asia and Africa. Considering the size of the country, the negative impact of armed conflict is more pronounced for small countries and less pronounced for large countries. There are nonlinear links between armed conflicts and R&D investments when GDP is at different threshold intervals. Further, the intensity of armed conflict determines the extent to which R&D investment shrinks. Our research is critical to the effective resolution of armed conflicts to achieve peaceful development and sustainable economic growth.

A comparison of pedestrian behavior in interactions with autonomous and human-driven vehicles: An extreme value theory approach

Autonomous Vehicle (AV) technologies are expected to result in significant safety and mobility benefits to the road system. However, one of the most important issues that autonomous vehicle technology faces is ensuring safe interactions with active road users such as pedestrians who can have unpredictable behavior. Moreover, road user behavior varies considerably across different traffic environments, which might represent a challenge to implementing AVs as they lack the intuition common in human-driven vehicles (HDV). This study proposes an approach to evaluate crash risk in vehicle–pedestrian interactions. An Extreme Value Theory (EVT) Peak Over Threshold (POT) model is used to compare the crash risk of AV-pedestrian and HDV-pedestrian interactions in four different cities, namely Boston, Las Vegas, Pittsburgh, and Singapore. A Bayesian hierarchical structure is used to incorporate the effect of several behavioral covariates, which enables estimating the crash risk of each interaction. Results show that the risk varies considerably depending on the type of interaction and the environment. For example, the impact of behavioral covariates (i.e., minimum distance between road users and maximum pedestrian speed) on the risk of AV-pedestrian interactions is greater when compared to the risk of HDV-pedestrian interactions in Boston, Las Vegas, and Singapore. This might indicate that, in busy and congested environments, road users may not be entirely comfortable with the presence of AVs. In addition, Singapore presented a higher percentage of riskier AV-pedestrian interactions when compared to the other cities. Finally, this study offers significant insights into the challenges of introducing AVs in diverse environments as behavior plays a crucial role in traffic and can influence conflict occurrence.

Conflict occurrence and preferred management styles among ICU nurses during the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional study in Saudi Arabia.

Intensive care units (ICUs) have been overwhelmed by the increasing number of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases, causing psychological burdens, stress, and various types of conflict among nurses. To examine the occurrence, type, and intensity of conflict and preferred management styles among ICU nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic. This cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in a government hospital in Saudi Arabia using a convenience sample of 95 nurses from three ICUs. Data were collected using an e-questionnaire comprising the Nursing Conflict Scale, Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory-II, and sociodemographic variables. Most participants reported exposure to moderately (64.2%) or highly (34.79%) intense conflict during the pandemic. The competitive (2.23 ± .472) and intragroup (2.23 ± .385) types of conflict were the most frequently reported. The preferred conflict management style was collaborating (21.85 ± 5.49), followed by accommodating (18.39 ± 4.03). Pearson's correlation analysis showed that age, years of experience, and education were significantly associated with conflict type and management style. Preparedness to care for suspected or confirmed COVID-19 cases was associated with interpersonal conflict (r = .20, p = .04). The participants experienced moderate- to high-intensity conflict; however, they employed constructive rather than destructive management styles. Nurse leaders, policymakers, and educators must initiate transformational intervention programmes to enhance and sustain nurses' competencies in constructive conflict management strategies. Interpersonal communication and crisis management training programmes should be formulated to raise nurses' awareness and enhance their competencies vis-à-vis taking a positive approach to overcoming various conflict types and levels, particularly during crises.

An integrated approach of machine learning and Bayesian spatial Poisson model for large-scale real-time traffic conflict prediction

The use of traffic conflicts in road safety evaluation is gaining considerable popularity as it plays a vital role in developing a proactive safety management strategy and allowing for real-time safety analysis. This study proposes an integrated approach that combines a machine learning (ML) algorithm and a Bayesian spatial Poisson (BSP) model to conduct large-scale real-time traffic conflict prediction by considering traffic states as the explanatory variables. Traffic conflicts are measured by two indicators, the Time to Collision (TTC) and the Post-Encroachment Time (PET). Based on both TTC and PET, traffic conflict severity is classified into five categories. For each conflict severity category, a binary variable (conflict occurrence) and a count variable (conflict frequency) are developed, respectively. In addition to conflict variables, traffic state parameters are extracted from a large-scale high-resolution trajectory dataset. The traffic parameters include volume, density, speed, and the corresponding space-based and space–time-based measures within a 30-second interval. Eight ML-based classifiers are applied to predict conflict occurrence, and the best classifier is selected. A binary logistic regression is developed to explore the potential linkages between traffic states and conflict occurrence. As well, a resampling technique Borderline-SMOTE is used to mitigate the sparsity caused by the predefined short interval. The BSP model is utilized to predict the specific number of conflicts. Further, the BSP model can also explain the relationship between traffic states and conflict frequency, and thus the significant influencing traffic states are identified. The results show that random forest outperforms the other MLs in terms of conflict occurrence prediction accuracy. Further, the proposed integrated approach achieves a high performance of conflict frequency prediction with RMSE values of 0.1384 ∼ 0.1699, MAPE values of 9.25% ∼ 36.99%, and MAE values of 0.0087 ∼ 0.6398. The finding emphasizes the need for separately predicting the occurrence and frequency of conflicts with different severities.

Agency cost and Earnings Management: Evidence from Amman Stock Exchange

This study examines the impact of agency cost and earnings management by employing data from 30 Industrial Jordanian firms from 2009 to 2019. In this study, I will investigate if earnings management decreases agency expenses in Jordan, a country where businesses face agency issues. The confluence of agency cost problems and earning management was tested using a static model. The main findings of this study suggest that Earnings Management is closely associated with agency costs. There is an Agency Conflict occurrence in the ASE. On the other hand, the factors affecting corporate governance have no appreciable impact on the agency cost index.

Modelling of motorcyclists' risky behaviour at an urban T-junction using generalised linear model: An exploratory study

Motorcyclists represent the greatest share of recorded traffic crashes and fatalities in Malaysia. The association between motorcyclists' behaviour and traffic conflict occurrence was assessed at a typical stop-regulated T-Junction in an urban area of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Traffic activities were filmed over four months and the behaviour of motorcyclists entering the main road from the minor road was observed from recorded video sequences. Situations ending in a traffic conflict were compared to similar interactive situations not ending with a conflict. In total, 447 sets of interactions of motorcyclists and other motorists at the T-Junction were analysed where 242 interactions ended in conflicts (three of them ended with traffic crashes). The generalised linear model with a binomial response and link logit was adopted to assess the association of motorcyclists' behavioural variables with the probability of conflict occurrence. The significant behavioural variables were classified into categories according to the statistical variation of the value they can assume in the dataset. The motorcyclist's entering angle was the most significant contributory factor in the probability of traffic conflict. The findings can be helpful in deciding on road safety countermeasures. The results could feed into the decisions of policymakers to structure the education and licensing process.

The effects of relational capital on likelihood of conflict occurrence under the moderation effect of the propensity to trust

This study aims to contribute to the conflict literature by arguing that the relational capital between co-worker affect the likelihood of conflict occurrence and investigating the moderation role of propensity to trust on this interaction. A random sample was drawn from 381 Turkish citizen white collar employees from SME companies in nine industries. The study was prepared to measure employees' perceptions of the conflict and relationship capital they experience with their co-worker, with whom they interact the most. According to the findings: 1) an increase in relational capital decreases the likelihood of task and relationship conflict occurrence; 2) relational capital decreases the likelihood of task and relationship conflict occurrence more when the levels of propensity to trust are high.

Toward Safer and Energy Efficient Global Trajectory Planning of Self-Guided Vehicles for Material Handling System in Dynamic Environment

For a sustainable operation of multiple Self-Guided Vehicles (SGVs) in a dynamic manufacturing environment, it is essential to guarantee collision-free and efficient navigation to the autonomous mobile platforms and safety to the surrounding subjects. To prevent from navigation failures, an SGV must avoid conflicts that constrain itself to abruptly brake or stop to avoid collisions. These inefficient conflicts result from unexpected changes in the configuration space or due to nearby unforeseen obstacle. In this paper, a navigation approach is proposed to adapt the global trajectory in order to reduce conflict occurrence while limiting energy consumption of the mobile platform. To generate such trajectory, first the collision risks are characterized using an objective risk perception parameter, the Time-To-Collision TTC, that rely on the kinematics of the egoSGV and the neighboring obstacles. Next, weighted Kernel Density Estimation (wKDE) defines the spatial distribution of conflict severity in configuration space. The defined zones are incorporated as a conflict layer in the global map. Then, a global trajectory planner algorithm is used to weigh between the length cost and conflict cost. Finally, to test the proposed solution, a simulation is performed in a factory-like environment, then an experiment is conducted with a real SGV. In comparison with the state-of-the-art geometrical path planning method, the results show that the proposed approach reduces navigation failures by up to 52%, while reducing the trajectory execution time by around up to 10 %. Also, the smoothness of the executed motion allowed to reduce energy consumption by over 12%.

The influence of cultural intelligence and emotional intelligence on conflict occurrence and performance in global virtual teams

The role of different types of intelligence in the occurrence of conflict in global virtual teams (GVTs) has largely been overlooked in the literature. As suggested by the theory of multiple intelligences, this study explores how cultural intelligence (CQ) and emotional intelligence (EQ) influence the occurrence of interpersonal, task and process conflicts in GVTs. Furthermore, by drawing on the contingency theory of task conflict and performance in groups and organisational teams, we examine the impact of these different types of conflict on the performance of GVTs. Utilising multilevel analysis, we tested the research model using a sample of 810 graduate and undergraduate business students from 38 different countries who worked in 232 GVTs. The results show that the CQ and EQ of the team members reduce the occurrence of the three different intragroup conflicts in GVTs. We also demonstrate that process conflict negatively affects GVT performance. We discuss the implications for research and practice.

Is climate exacerbating the root causes of conflict in Mali? A climate security analysis through a structural equation modeling approach

Climate continues to pose significant challenges to human existence. Notably, in the past decade, the focus on the role of climate on conflict and social unrest has gained traction in academic, development, and policy communities. This article examines the link between climate variability and conflict in Mali. It advances the argument that climate is a threat multiplier, in other words, climate indirectly affects conflict occurrence through numerous pathways. We take the view that maize production and household food security status sequentially mediate the relationship between climate variability and the different conflict types. First, we provide a brief review of the climate conflict pathways in Mali. Second, we employ the path analysis within the structural equation modeling technique to test the hypothesized pathways and answer the research questions. We use the Living Standards Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA), a nationally representative data from Mali merged with time and location-specific climate and the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) data. Results show that an increase in positive temperature anomalies when sequentially mediated by maize production and household food security status, increase the occurrence of the different conflict types. The results are robust to the use of negative precipitation anomalies (tendency toward less precipitation compared to the historical norm). Our findings highlight two key messages, first, the crucial role of climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies and interventions on influencing household food security status and thus reducing conflict occurrence. Second, that efforts to build peace and security should account for the role of climate in exacerbating the root causes of conflict.

Wedding Amidst War? Armed Conflict and Female Teen Marriage in Azerbaijan

Does armed conflict influence female teen marriage? Despite increasing attention to early marriage, its drivers and consequences, quantitative research on whether teen unions are affected by situations of armed violence is minimal. This paper addresses this gap by examining the relationship between exposure to the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh over 1992–1996 and teen marriage outcomes in Azerbaijan. Using data from the 2006 Demographic and Health Survey and the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, I compare cohorts at risk of teen union before and during the conflict climax years with a modelling strategy that exploits information on forced displacement and spatial variation in conflict violence. Results show that experiencing war violence in adolescent ages, its intensity and frequency are associated with a lower risk of teen marriage. Reductions are largest for the cohorts who spent most of their adolescent ages under conflict and who were displaced as a result. For never-migrant conflict-affected girls, declines extend to the youngest cohorts. The combination of age at conflict occurrence and the experience of disruptive events like forced migration matters for teen marriage outcomes.