Cooperative Mechanism Research Articles

Analyzing knowledge integration in convergence research

A pragmatic concern guides this perspective piece: How might researchers charged with leading convergence research better plan, design, implement, and evaluate the integrative processes and products of their research? We use a self-evaluation approach to assess the integrative processes and products of the first two years of a five-year National Science Foundation Growing Convergence Research project on addressing inland freshwater salinization. To examine the linkages between integration approaches and products, we analyzed the integrative qualities of fifteen research products and the collaborative processes used to generate these products. We found that large, heterogeneous teams with a broad mix of disciplines and professional expertise produced more interdisciplinary research products, but they relied on skilled integration by the leader, more intensive forms of collaboration, and inclusive problem framing. Teams that relied on deliberation by experts and used more consultative or cooperative mechanisms for engagement produced research that was more uni- or multi-disciplinary. We consider the efficacy of the various knowledge integration approaches used in this research and share empirically derived recommendations for designing, implementing, and evaluating convergence research. Our findings and lessons provide researchers at the helm of large-scale convergence and transdisciplinary research projects that address complex socio-environmental problems guidance on: (1) the planning and designing of projects with the explicit goal of knowledge integration; (2) the selection and implementation of appropriate knowledge integration approaches and tools; and (3) how knowledge integration can be conceptualized and evaluated for socio-environmental problems.

Cooperative folding as a molecular switch in an evolved antibody binder

Designing proteins with tunable activities from easily accessible external cues remains a biotechnological challenge. Here, we set out to create a small antibody-binding domain equipped with a molecular switch inspired by the allosteric response to calcium seen in naturally derived proteins like calmodulin. We have focused on one of the three domains of Protein G that show inherent affinity to antibodies. By combining a semi-rational protein design with directed evolution, we engineered novel variants containing a calcium-binding loop rendering the inherent antibody affinity calcium-dependent. The evolved variants resulted from a designed selection strategy subjecting them to negative and positive selection pressures focused on conditional antibody-binding. Hence, these variants contained molecular “on/off” switches, controlling the target affinity towards antibody fragments simply by the presence or absence of calcium. From NMR spectroscopy we found that the molecular mechanism underlying the evolved switching behavior was a coupled calcium-binding and folding event where the target binding surface was intact and functional only in the presence of bound calcium. Notably, it was observed that the response to the employed selection pressures gave rise to the evolution of a cooperative folding mechanism. This observation illustrates why the cooperative folding reaction is an effective solution seen repeatedly in the natural evolution of fine-tuned macromolecular recognition. Engineering binding moieties to confer conditional target interaction has great potential due to the exquisite interaction control that is tunable to application requirements. Improved understanding of the molecular mechanisms behind regulated interactions is crucial to unlock how to engineer switchable proteins useful in a variety of biotechnological applications.

A Channel-Sensing-Based Multipath Multihop Cooperative Transmission Mechanism for UE Aggregation in Asymmetric IoE Scenarios

With the continuous progress and development of technology, the Internet of Everything (IoE) is gradually becoming a research hotspot. More companies and research institutes are focusing on the connectivity and transmission between multiple devices in asymmetric networks, such as V2X, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), environmental monitoring, disaster management, agriculture, and so on. The number of devices and business volume of these applications have rapidly increased in recent years, which will lead to a large load of terminals and affect the transmission efficiency of IoE data transmission. To deal with this issue, it has been proposed to perform data transmission via multipath cooperative transmission with multihop transmission. This approach aims to improve transmission latency, energy consumption, reliability, and throughput. This paper designs a channel-sensing-based cooperative transmission mechanism (CSCTM) with hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) for user equipment (UE) aggregation mechanism in future asymmetric IoE scenarios, which ensures that IoE devices data can be transmitted quickly and reliably, and supports real-time data processing and analysis. The main contents of this proposed method include strategies of cooperative transmission and redundancy version (RV) determination, a joint combination of decoding process at the receiving side, and a design of transmission priority through ascending offset sort (AOS) algorithm based on channel sensing. In addition, multihop technology is designed for the multipath cooperative transmission strategy, which enables cooperative nodes (CN) to help UE to transmit data. As a result, it can be obtained that CSCTM provides significant advancements in latency and energy consumption for the whole system. It demonstrates improvements in enhanced coverage, improved reliability, and minimized latency.

Coopetition strategies in a two-stage, multi-agent supply chain under hybrid carbon trading mechanisms

ABSTRACT Managing a multi-agent supply chain within a hybrid carbon trading framework, which integrates Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) and Carbon Quota Trading (CQT), presents a significant challenge. This complexity is further amplified by the interplay of competition and cooperation among agents. Motivated by this, we develop a biform game-based cooperative mechanism for a two-stage supply chain that includes a high-emission manufacturer, a negative-emission manufacture and a downstream retailer. This mechanism is designed to encapsulate both the non-cooperative and cooperative game elements. The former features a product competition game among the manufacturers and retailer, setting the stage for the cooperative game without directly yielding equilibrium solutions. The latter involves a cost-sharing agreement for the CER project's initial investment, informed by various coalitional zero-sum games. Our analytical findings, corroborated by numerical simulations, reveal that the biform game coordination mechanism significantly enhances the volume of CERs traded and consumer surplus, compared to a non-cooperative scenario. It effectively aligns the collaborative efforts of all agents within the supply chain. This research contributes substantially to the literature on coordinating multi-stage, multi-agent supply chains, and the strategic deployment of emission reduction initiatives in supply chains. It also offers valuable managerial insights for the design of government regulations in carbon markets.

Cooperative mechanisms behind nanoscale smoothing on metal surfaces: From adatom diffusion to step nucleation

Cooperative mechanisms behind nanoscale smoothing on metal surfaces: From adatom diffusion to step nucleation

Evolutionary Game Analysis of Collaborative Prefabricated Buildings Development Behavior in China under Carbon Emissions Trading Schemes

Prefabricated buildings (PBs) are considered a green way to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions in the construction industry due to their environmental and social benefits. However, PBs have obstacles such as high construction costs, immature technology, and insufficient policy incentives, and developers’ willingness to develop them needs to be higher. Therefore, it is necessary to explore how to motivate more developers to develop PBs. In this paper, we first discuss the impact of the carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS) on the construction industry and then consider the heterogeneity of construction developers, introduce a collaborative mechanism to establish a three-party evolutionary game model between the government and the heterogeneous developers, and explore the evolution of the three-party dynamic strategies through numerical simulation. The results show that developers’ initial development probability affects the system’s evolutionary trend, and the developer who obtains more low-carbon benefits plays a dominant role. Further analyses show that critical factors such as market profitability, synergistic benefits, and carbon tax price positively influence the development of PBs, and the influence of synergistic cooperation mechanisms should be especially emphasized. This study provides practical insights into the sustainable development of the construction industry and the government’s development of a suitable carbon portfolio policy for it. Including the construction industry in the ETS is recommended when carbon prices reach 110 RMB/t. At this point, the government can remove the subsidy for PBs, but the behaviors of the developers who participate in the ETS still need to be supervised.

Legal Cooperation and Conflict Resolution Mechanism in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area

The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) is an important strategic region for China's economic development. The coordination and integration of its legal system plays a key role in realizing the economic, social and cultural integration in the region. However, as Hong Kong, Macao and Guangdong belong to different legal systems and social systems respectively, the differences between the legal systems lead to frequent conflicts of laws and hinder the coordinated development in the region. Based on the constitutional and legal foundations, historical and cultural backgrounds of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, as well as the practical experience of Guangdong, this paper analyzes in detail the main challenges facing the current legal collaboration and conflict resolution mechanism in the GBA. These challenges are mainly reflected in the imperfect legislative design, the inadequacy of legal protection, and the unclear legal remedies. Through in-depth discussion of these issues, this paper proposes specific ways to establish a legislative coordination mechanism, formulate a unified substantive law, develop diversified relief channels, and ensure the equal application of law by residents of the three places, with a view to optimizing the legal cooperation and conflict resolution mechanism of the GBA, so as to provide a solid legal guarantee for regional stability and prosperity. The research in this paper not only provides a new perspective for understanding the complexity of legal integration in the GBA, but also puts forward feasible suggestions for deepening regional legal cooperation in the future.

Jurisdictional Conflicts and Solutions in Bribery Cases of Multinational Corporations

Commercial bribery by multinational corporations is hampering global economic development and threatening the legal authority of states. In dealing with such cases, countries often form violent conflicts of jurisdiction in cases due to differences in legislation, law enforcement and judicial systems, among other reasons. Such conflicts not only affect the efficiency of handling cases, but may also lead to a waste of law enforcement resources and the evasion of legal responsibility by multinational corporations. By introducing the basic types of jurisdiction in cases of multinational corporations, this paper points out the reasons for the formation of conflicts of jurisdiction among countries. Then this paper systematically analyzes some representative domestic acts and international conventions, and finds that most countries and international organizations are actively working on legislation. In many years of judicial practice, the world has achieved remarkable results in combating transnational commercial bribery. However, there are still many shortcomings in these existing legal mechanisms and implementation methods. This paper aims to propose a more efficient solution to the existing dilemma, and suggests that the mechanism for determining jurisdiction in bribery cases of multinational corporations should be further improved by strengthening the international cooperation mechanism and establishing a global anti-bribery body.

A zero precision loss framework for EEG channel selection: enhancing efficiency and maintaining interpretability

The brain-computer interface (BCI) systems based on motor imagery typically rely on a large number of electrode channels to acquire information. The rational selection of electroencephalography (EEG) channel combinations is crucial for optimizing computational efficiency and enhancing practical applicability. However, evaluating all potential channel combinations individually is impractical. This study aims to explore a strategy for quickly achieving a balance between maximizing channel reduction and minimizing precision loss. To this end, we developed a spatio-temporal attention perception network named STAPNet. Based on the channel contributions adaptively generated by its subnetwork, we propose an extended step bi-directional search strategy that includes variable ratio channel selection (VRCS) and strided greedy channel selection (SGCS), designed to enhance global search capabilities and accelerate the optimization process. Experimental results show that on the High Gamma and BCI Competition IV 2a public datasets, the framework respectively achieved average maximum accuracies of 91.47% and 84.17%. Under conditions of zero precision loss, the average number of channels was reduced by a maximum of 87.5%. Additionally, to investigate the impact of neural information loss due to channel reduction on the interpretation of complex brain functions, we employed a heatmap visualization algorithm to verify the universal importance and complete symmetry of the selected optimal channel combination across multiple datasets. This is consistent with the brain’s cooperative mechanism when processing tasks involving both the left and right hands.

Dynamic resilience analysis of the liner shipping network: From structure to cooperative mechanism

Liner shipping networks play a vital role in global and regional trade. However, they are susceptible to damage from unexpected interruptions, which can trigger dynamic cascading failures and undermine the system’s resilience. To address this challenge, we propose a novel cascading failure model for liner shipping networks that considers the characteristics of the network structure and port functions. First, we design two load redistribution methods that rely on network topology and employ a cooperative mechanism for coordination. This cooperative mechanism aims to balance the benefits for carriers and shippers by effectively controlling losses. Subsequently, we develop three metrics—network congestion rate, failure rate, and shipper loss—to assess the resilience of the network during cascading failures. To verify the impact of the cooperative mechanism, we apply the proposed methods to the China-Europe liner shipping network. Through simulations involving various port failures and resistance levels, we analyze the effectiveness of the cooperative mechanism. The results demonstrate that redistributing the load to downstream ports within the network effectively mitigates deep cascading failures. Additionally, the implementation of a port cooperative mechanism enhances resilience in the face of uncertainties by safeguarding crucial ports within the network and significantly reducing shipper losses. When port resistance is low, the cooperative mechanism reduces shipper losses by nearly half and lowers the average congestion rate. Although port reserve capacity can resist cascading failures, it falls short in the face of severe disruptions. In such cases, the cooperative mechanism compensates for capacity shortages, enhancing port resilience at a low cost. This study contributes to combating and minimizing cascading congestion in liner shipping networks, offering valuable insights for risk prevention and management strategies for ports and shipping companies. It also has implications for yield management and policy decisions from a network perspective.

The Evolution of Government–Enterprise Strategies of “Expressway + Logistics Distribution”

Currently, China’s expressway revenue and expenditure imbalance problem is serious. The development of an “Expressway Derivative Economy” (EDE) helps address expressway deficits, ensuring the expressway's sustainable operation. The “Expressway + Logistics Distribution” (ELD) mode is a crucial form of the EDE and enhances expressway traffic flow and asset income. However, the cooperation mechanism among stakeholders remains unclear, hindering the widespread promotion of this mode. This study designs two ELD modes and elaborates on their respective advantages. Therefore, a three-party evolutionary game model involving the government, expressway groups, and logistics enterprises is established. Government “land-use-right” grant and tax incentive policies are formulated to explore the cooperation mechanism among stakeholders. The results indicate that both government “land-use-right” grant and tax incentive policies positively influence the positive evolution of the system. However, when the government “land-use-right” grants reach a high level, the willingness of logistics enterprises to choose entry will decrease due to resource crowding. Comparatively, a higher-level “land-use-right” grant policy significantly enhances the role of government tax incentive policy in promoting the positive development of the system. During tight government funding, it is a feasible policy to prioritize expressway groups by providing more tax incentives. The findings provide theoretical guidance for promoting the ELD mode.

Exploring the dynamic evolution of lattice oxygen on exsolved-Mn2O3@SmMn2O5 interfaces for NO Oxidation

Lattice oxygen in metal oxides plays an important role in the reaction of diesel oxidation catalysts, but the atomic-level understanding of structural evolution during the catalytic process remains elusive. Here, we develop a Mn2O3/SmMn2O5 catalyst using a non-stoichiometric exsolution method to explore the roles of lattice oxygen in NO oxidation. The enhanced covalency of Mn–O bond and increased electron density at Mn3+ sites, induced by the interface between exsolved Mn2O3 and mullite, lead to the formation of highly active lattice oxygen adjacent to Mn3+ sites. Near-ambient pressure X-ray photoelectron and absorption spectroscopies show that the activated lattice oxygen enables reversible changes in Mn valence states and Mn-O bond covalency during redox cycles, reducing energy barriers for NO oxidation and promoting NO2 desorption via the cooperative Mars-van Krevelen mechanism. Therefore, the Mn2O3/SmMn2O5 exhibits higher NO oxidation activity and better resistance to hydrothermal aging compared to a commercial Pt/Al2O3 catalyst.

Innovative Youth Research and Study Education Model and the Cultivation of Future Talent in the United States

This paper explores the innovative youth research and study education model and its significance in the cultivation of future talent in the United States. In the era of globalization, the United States needs to cultivate future talent with innovative and practical abilities. The innovative education model emphasizes practice, inquiry, and innovation, and integrates technological methods such as Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence, and online learning platforms. It focuses on project-based learning, cultivates problem-solving skills, and encourages students’ independent inquiry and teamwork. This model provides a richer learning experience, helping students develop innovative thinking, technological literacy, and practical abilities. It also promotes the development of related industries such as culture, education, and science and technology innovation. Implementation strategies include formulating policies, strengthening promotion, establishing cooperation mechanisms, and developing curriculum resources. To fully leverage the potential of this model, investment and support from governments, schools, and society are necessary.

China-Taiwan Issues in the Security Climate of East and Southeast Asia

Abstract The security architecture of East and Southeast Asia is in a process of extensive change, driven by the rising Chinese state, but also by the US, which, with its military and institutional power here, is a pillar of stability that seeks to preserve American supremacy and the liberal international system. Current developments show that some of China’s neighbors are no longer inclined simply to fall in line with Beijing’s policy, but rather are determined to challenge its inclination towards regional hegemony, and are arming themselves to do so, diversifying its security relations and forging strong ties with the US, denouncing China’s attempts to create a sino-centric system based on building an ‘Asian’ security and economic architecture, translated into institutional arrangements based on cooperation mechanisms centered on (and for the benefit of) the Chinese state.

What is the role of product services in the dual-channel closed-loop supply chain?

With the continuous development of internet technology and increasing awareness of environmental protection among consumers, the dual-channel closed-loop supply chain management combining online direct sales channel and retail channel has received more and more attention, however, the existing research has neglected the service research, so this paper focuses on the service strategy in the dual-channel closed-loop supply chain. In this paper, we propose three service strategy models for dual-channel closed-loop supply chains, including when there is no service provision, after-sales service and recycling service provided by retailers and after-sales service provided by manufacturers and recycling service provided by retailers, compare and analyze the optimal decisions of supply chain members under the three service strategy models, discuss the role of service generated in dual-channel closed-loop supply chains, and propose a service cost-sharing strategy to achieve a Pareto improvement in the effectiveness of a dual-channel closed-loop supply chain. The study finds that service plays a positive role in the dual-channel closed-loop supply chain; the model of manufacturer providing after-sales service and retailer providing recycling service is the best service strategy choice in terms of economic and social benefits; the service cooperation mechanism of service cost sharing can achieve Pareto improvement of the supply chain within a reasonable range.

Cooperative thalamocortical circuit mechanism for sensory prediction errors

The brain functions as a prediction machine, utilizing an internal model of the world to anticipate sensations and the outcomes of our actions. Discrepancies between expected and actual events, referred to as prediction errors, are leveraged to update the internal model and guide our attention towards unexpected events1–10. Despite the importance of prediction-error signals for various neural computations across the brain, surprisingly little is known about the neural circuit mechanisms responsible for their implementation. Here we describe a thalamocortical disinhibitory circuit that is required for generating sensory prediction-error signals in mouse primary visual cortex (V1). We show that violating animals’ predictions by an unexpected visual stimulus preferentially boosts responses of the layer 2/3 V1 neurons that are most selective for that stimulus. Prediction errors specifically amplify the unexpected visual input, rather than representing non-specific surprise or difference signals about how the visual input deviates from the animal’s predictions. This selective amplification is implemented by a cooperative mechanism requiring thalamic input from the pulvinar and cortical vasoactive-intestinal-peptide-expressing (VIP) inhibitory interneurons. In response to prediction errors, VIP neurons inhibit a specific subpopulation of somatostatin-expressing inhibitory interneurons that gate excitatory pulvinar input to V1, resulting in specific pulvinar-driven response amplification of the most stimulus-selective neurons in V1. Therefore, the brain prioritizes unpredicted sensory information by selectively increasing the salience of unpredicted sensory features through the synergistic interaction of thalamic input and neocortical disinhibitory circuits.

Evolve ensemble rules automatically for the block spatial scheduling under dynamic environments via surrogate-assisted cooperative evolution genetic programming

ABSTRACT The spatial scheduling problem is a crucial investigated problem in operations research and is widely used in shipbuilding, assembly line production and engineering projects. In this paper, we introduce a new block spatial scheduling problem (BSSP) by considering regular resources (manpower and equipment) and dynamic environments. Then, a surrogate-assisted cooperative evolution genetic programming (SCE-GP) is designed to address the BSSP. For the developed algorithm, we firstly propose a new surrogate model by considering the problem surrogate and fitness function surrogate simultaneously, and compare it with the existing models that consider only the fitness function surrogate or problem surrogate under different uncertain environments. Secondly, the cooperative evolution mechanism and random forest technique are embedded in the algorithm to improve its performance. More importantly, we compare different methods for selecting promising individuals. In addition, the design-of-experiment (DOE) approach is utilised to explore the effect of parameter settings. Finally, the performance of SCE-GP with different surrogate models is investigated on our configured data sets based on the benchmark instances of the PSPLIB library. At the same time, we verify the effectiveness of the SCE-GP under different surrogate models and uncertain environments, the performance of the cooperative evolution mechanism, random forest technique and selected method for promising individuals through extensive numerical experiments is also investigated. The results show that the SCE-GP is more excellent than traditional heuristic priority rules (PRs), but different surrogate models yield different results in different uncertain environments.

Structural characterization of TIR-domain signalosomes through a combination of structural biology approaches.

The TIR (Toll/interleukin-1 receptor) domain represents a vital structural element shared by proteins with roles in immunity signalling pathways across phyla (from humans and plants to bacteria). Decades of research have finally led to identifying the key features of the molecular basis of signalling by these domains, including the formation of open-ended (filamentous) assemblies (responsible for the signalling by cooperative assembly formation mechanism, SCAF) and enzymatic activities involving the cleavage of nucleotides. We present a historical perspective of the research that led to this understanding, highlighting the roles that different structural methods played in this process: X-ray crystallography (including serial crystallography), microED (micro-crystal electron diffraction), NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) spectroscopy and cryo-EM (cryogenic electron microscopy) involving helical reconstruction and single-particle analysis. This perspective emphasizes the complementarity of different structural approaches.

Tumor Microenvironment-Responsive Magnetotactic Bacteria-Based Multi-Drug Delivery Platform for MRI-Visualized Tumor Photothermal Chemodynamic Therapy.

Cancer cells display elevated reactive oxygen species (ROS) and altered redox status. Herein, based on these characteristics, we present a multi-drug delivery platform, AMB@PDAP-Fe (APPF), from the magnetotactic bacterium AMB-1 and realize MRI-visualized tumor-microenvironment-responsive photothermal-chemodynamic therapy. The Fe3+ in PDAP-Fe is reduced by the GSH at the tumor site and is released in the form of highly active Fe2+, which catalyzes the generation of ROS through the Fenton reaction and inhibits tumor growth. At the same time, the significant absorption of the mineralized magnetosomes in AMB-1 cells in the NIR region enables them to efficiently convert near-infrared light into heat energy for photothermal therapy (PTT), to which PDAP also contributes. The heat generated in the PTT process accelerates the process of Fe2+ release, thereby achieving an enhanced Fenton reaction in the tumor microenvironment. In addition, the magnetosomes in AMB-1 are used as an MRI contrast agent, and the curing process is visualized. This tumor microenvironment-responsive MTB-based multi-drug delivery platform displays the potency to combat tumors and demonstrates the utility and practicality of understanding the cooperative molecular mechanism when designing multi-drug combination therapies.

Distributed optimization control strategy for distribution network based on the cooperation of distributed generations

AbstractAiming to improve the voltage distribution and realize the proportional sharing of active and reactive power in the distribution network (DN), this article proposes a distributed optimal control strategy based on the grouping cooperation mechanism of the distributed generation (DG). The proposed strategy integrates the local information of the DG and the global information of the DN. Considering the high resistance/reactance ratio of DN, distributed optimization control strategies for node voltage control and active power management are developed with the consensus variable of active utilization rate. And distributed strategy for reactive power management is proposed with a consensus variable of reactive utilization rate. The convergence of the distributed control system for each group is proved. The validity and robustness of the proposed strategy are verified by several simulations in the IEEE 33‐bus system.