Context Of Cooperation Research Articles

Stakeholders Perspectives on the Success Drivers in Ghana's National Health Insurance Scheme - Identifying Policy Translation Issues.

Background: Ghana’s National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), established by an Act of Parliament (Act 650), in 2003 and since replaced by Act 852 of 2012 remains, in African terms, unprecedented in terms of growth and coverage. As a result, the scheme has received praise for its associated legal reforms, clinical audit mechanisms and for serving as a hub for knowledge sharing and learning within the context of South-South cooperation. The scheme continues to shape national health insurance thinking in Africa. While the success, especially in coverage and financial access has been highlighted by many authors, insufficient attention has been paid to critical and context-specific factors. This paper seeks to fill that gap. Methods: Based on an empirical qualitative case study of stakeholders’ views on challenges and success factors in four mutual schemes (district offices) located in two regions of Ghana, the study uses the concept of policy translation to assess whether the Ghana scheme could provide useful lessons to other African and developing countries in their quest to implement social/NHISs. Results: In the study, interviewees referred to both ‘hard and soft’ elements as driving the "success" of the Ghana scheme. The main ‘hard elements’ include bureaucratic and legal enforcement capacities; IT; financing; governance, administration and management; regulating membership of the scheme; and service provision and coverage capabilities. The ‘soft’ elements identified relate to: the background/context of the health insurance scheme; innovative ways of funding the NHIS, the hybrid nature of the Ghana scheme; political will, commitment by government, stakeholders and public cooperation; social structure of Ghana (solidarity); and ownership and participation. Conclusion: Other developing countries can expect to translate rather than re-assemble a national health insurance programme in an incomplete and highly modified form over a period of years, amounting to a process best conceived as germination as opposed to emulation. The Ghana experience illustrates that in adopting health financing systems that function well, countries need to customise systems (policy customisation) to suit their socio-economic, political and administrative settings. Home-grown health financing systems that resonate with social values will also need to be found in the process of translation

Do Dogs Provide Information Helpfully?

Dogs are particularly skilful during communicative interactions with humans. Dogs’ abilities to use human communicative cues in cooperative contexts outcompete those of other species, and might be the result of selection pressures during domestication. Dogs also produce signals to direct the attention of humans towards outside entities, a behaviour often referred to as showing behaviour. This showing behaviour in dogs is thought to be something dogs use intentionally and referentially. However, there is currently no evidence that dogs communicate helpfully, i.e. to inform an ignorant human about a target that is of interest to the human but not to the dog. Communicating with a helpful motive is particularly interesting because it might suggest that dogs understand the human’s goals and need for information. In study 1, we assessed whether dogs would abandon an object that they find interesting in favour of an object useful for their human partner, a random novel distractor, or an empty container. Results showed that it was mainly self-interest that was driving the dogs’ behaviour. The dogs mainly directed their behaviour towards the object they had an interest in, but dogs were more persistent when showing the object relevant to the human, suggesting that to some extent they took the humans interest into account. Another possibility is that dogs’ behaviour was driven by an egocentric motivation to interact with novel targets and that the dogs’ neophila might have masked their helpful tendencies. Therefore, in study 2 the dogs had initial access to both objects, and were expected to indicate only one (relevant or distractor). The human partner interacted with the dog using vocal communication in half of the trials, and remaining silent in the other half. Dogs from both experimental groups, i.e. indicating the relevant object or indicating the distractor, established joint attention with the human. However, the human’s vocal communication and the presence of the object relevant to the human increased the persistency of showing, supporting the hypothesis that the dogs understood the objects’ relevance to the human. We propose two non-exclusive explanations. These results might suggest that informative motives could possibly underlie dogs’ showing. It is also possible that dogs might have indicated the location of the hidden object because they recognised it as the target of the human’s search. This would be consistent with taking into account the objects’ relevance, without necessarily implying that the dogs understood the human’s state of knowledge.

Reducing the effect of stereotype threat: the role of coaction contexts and regulatory fit

Two experiments examined the effects of competition and cooperation contexts, as well as regulatory fit, on reducing the negative influence of stereotype threat. Experiment 1 demonstrated that in high stereotype threat conditions, participants in the cooperation context scored significantly higher on a math test than those in the competition context, while participants in low stereotype threat conditions did not differ in both contexts. Experiment 2 found that under stereotype threat, participants with induced prevention focus scored significantly higher on a math test in the cooperation context than those in the competition context or control group. At the same time, participants with induced promotion foci did not differ between the contexts. Thus, while the cooperation context may counteract the effect of stereotype threat, inducing a promotion focus may create a regulatory fit in the competition context that could also remove the effect of stereotype threat.

Self-Other Mergence in the Frontal Cortex during Cooperation and Competition

SummaryTo survive, humans must estimate their own ability and the abilities of others. We found that, although people estimated their abilities on the basis of their own performance in a rational manner, their estimates of themselves were partly merged with the performance of others. Reciprocally, their ability estimates for others also reflected their own, as well as the others’, performance. Self-other mergence operated in a context-dependent manner: interacting with high or low performers, respectively, enhanced and diminished own ability estimates in cooperative contexts, but the opposite occurred in competitive contexts. Self-other mergence not only influenced subjective evaluations, it also affected how people subsequently objectively adjusted their performance. Perigenual anterior cingulate cortex tracked one’s own performance. Dorsomedial frontal area 9 tracked others’ performances, but also integrated contextual and self-related information. Self-other mergence increased with the strength of self and other representations in area 9, suggesting it carries interdependent representations of self and other.

Individuality vs. communality⿿A new dual role of co-operatives?

Abstract As people, values and times change, co-operatives also restructure themselves making the reappraisal of co-operative theory topical. This article contributes to the co-operative theory by exploring the very core of co-operative ideology, the dual nature. The literature review contributes to the theoretical basis regarding the most distinctive characteristic of a co-operative form of business by reasserting the concept of dual role. Secondly, the empirical case study explores the interpreted meanings and manifestation of dual role in a worker co-operative context. Based on the research, we suggest that considering the duality of co-operatives⿿ goals, social and financial goals are not the ones defining and guiding the operations. Instead, individuality and communality are two rival forces that form an inherent contradiction in worker co-operative operations. The article highlights how individuality gains dominance in a co-operative due to its extreme democracy and flexible structure, and how this deteriorates communality, the bearing force of the community. Thus, we suggest that finding a balance between the conflicting needs and expectations of an individual member and the co-operative reflects the ⿿new dual nature⿿ of co-operatives. We also argue that when properly balanced, both shared and individual goals will provide an ideal work community for modern entrepreneurs. 1

CoMon+: A Cooperative Context Monitoring System for Multi-Device Personal Sensing Environments

Continuous mobile sensing applications are emerging. Despite their usefulness, their real-world adoption has been slow. Many users are turned away by the drastic battery drain caused by continuous sensing and processing. In this paper, we propose CoMon+, a novel cooperative context monitoring system, which addresses the energy problem through opportunistic cooperation among nearby users. For effective cooperation, we develop a benefit-aware negotiation method to maximize the energy benefit of context sharing. CoMon+ employs heuristics to detect cooperators who are likely to remain in the vicinity for a long period of time, and the negotiation method automatically devises a cooperation plan that provides mutual benefit to cooperators, while considering running applications, available devices, and user policies. Especially, CoMon+ improves the negotiation method proposed in our earlier work, CoMon [30] , to exploit multiple processing plans enabled by various personal sensing devices; each plan can be alternatively used for cooperation, which in turn will maximize overall power saving. We implement a CoMon+ prototype and show that it provides significant benefit for mobile sensing applications, e.g., saving 27-71 percent of smartphone power consumption depending on cooperation cases. Also, our deployment study shows that CoMon+ saves an average 19.7 percent of battery under daily use of a prototype application compared to the case without CoMon+ running.

Feedback for a better performing public sector

Feedback by independent institutions such as courts, auditors and ombudsmen can guide the public sector on how to improve the performance of the public sector and suppress corruption. This article underlines that rules and checks are not an effective answer to corruption and growing distrust in society. The heart of the matter is the effectiveness of feedback systems. In (complex) modern states the whole range of democracy – judicial control, audit, supervision by ombudsmen and (market) regulators, and evaluation by independent bodies, and applications in the digital world – are all important examples of feedback. Feedback depends not only on rules and the existence of legal institutions, but also on (international) cooperation. If, for instance, an audit body is working with a hostile public sector not open to critical ref lection, its effectiveness can be limited. In this respect, there is an important difference between power and authority. The same goes for (constitutional) courts and the ombudsman. Feedback systems in the public sector can only f lourish in an open and cooperative context. If not, public services have a tendency to become inward-looking and unresponsive to the outside world. To conclude, improvement of the performance of the public sector should be based on a learning process; feedback is highly relevant to this. In this context, a culture of difficult conversations is highly relevant as a part of the learning process.

Belgium and the European Arrest Warrant: Is European Criminal Cooperation Under Pressure?

EuCLR European Criminal Law Review , Seite 186 - 210

Cooperative context is a determinant of the social influence on outcome evaluation: An electrophysiological study

The present study examined whether or not a cooperative context is a determinant of the social influence on the evaluation of two action outcomes: a monetary outcome and a conflict of opinion with other group members. In the present study, three-person groups were randomly assigned to be either a cooperative or individual group and asked to perform a gambling task. The monetary outcomes in the cooperative group were interrelated among group members, whereas those in the individual group did not influence each other. The present results showed that monetary outcomes elicited feedback-related negativity (FRN) and a conflict of opinion with other group members elicited FRN-like negativity, which reflect an evaluation of the motivational significance of action outcomes. The FRN elicited by monetary outcomes was reduced when participants shared decisions with other group members only in the cooperative group, indicating that the cooperative context reduced the motivational significance of monetary outcomes through the diffusion of responsibility. The FRN-like negativity elicited by a conflict of opinion showed a different pattern between the cooperative and individual groups, indicating that the cooperative context can influence the evaluation of a conflict of opinion, possibly via the modulation of group cohesiveness or conflict processing. The present results suggest that a cooperative context, rather than the social setting, is a determinant of the social influence on outcome evaluation.

Social density processes regulate the functioning and performance of foraging human teams.

Social density processes impact the activity and order of collective behaviours in a variety of biological systems. Much effort has been devoted to understanding how density of people affects collective human motion in the context of pedestrian flows. However, there is a distinct lack of empirical data investigating the effects of social density on human behaviour in cooperative contexts. Here, we examine the functioning and performance of human teams in a central-place foraging arena using high-resolution GPS data. We show that team functioning (level of coordination) is greatest at intermediate social densities, but contrary to our expectations, increased coordination at intermediate densities did not translate into improved collective foraging performance, and foraging accuracy was equivalent across our density treatments. We suggest that this is likely a consequence of foragers relying upon visual channels (local information) to achieve coordination but relying upon auditory channels (global information) to maximise foraging returns. These findings provide new insights for the development of more sophisticated models of human collective behaviour that consider different networks for communication (e.g. visual and vocal) that have the potential to operate simultaneously in cooperative contexts.

Social Contagion in Competitors Versus Cooperators

SummaryThe current study examined social contagion—or the spreading of memories from individual to individual—in two different social contexts: Competition and Cooperation. Participants were provided with words (Experiments 1A and 1B) or scenes (Experiment 2) to study. After study, participants were randomly divided: Half were given a competitive context, and the other half, a cooperative context. Then, in the paired recall phase, each participant took turns with a confederate partner in recalling the previously studied items. On a subsequent test, participants had to report the items that were recalled on the pair recall phase, in addition to who had recalled that item. The results showed that competitors, as compared with cooperators, were more likely to focus on other people's memories, and surprisingly, the same difference obtained for false memories. Essentially, people who are primed with a competitive context were more easily ‘infected’ by memories, true or false. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Middleware-based Cooperative Context Dissemination for Smart Home Application

A smart home service is provided by following several contexts of environment and user activities. Moreover, some contexts are common for different services. So, it is unwise to separately compute the same context for different services due to the processing time cost, here a context reusable mechanism can significantly reduce the context computing cost. For this purpose, middleware-based implementation is a good alternative. Middleware uses raw data through sensors and user profiles from database then generates context using these data, and finally conveys context to applications. In this paper, we propose a middleware architecture that shares context in a cooperative manner so that it can be reused among applications. Basically, this middleware generates a particular context at once for a time interval and disseminates among registered applications using a new mechanism. Measuring inequality of the context computing time over application-based implementation exposes the effectiveness of this middleware.

Instructions of cooperation and competition influence the neural responses to others’ pain: An ERP study

Neural activities triggered by viewing other’s in pain have been previously reported to be modulated by various factors. How instructions of cooperation and competition can influence these activities has not been explored yet. In the current study, participants were instructed to play a game cooperatively or competitively with a partner. During the game, pictures showing an anonymous individual’s hand or foot in painful or non-painful situations were randomly presented in an oddball style. The event-related potentials (ERPs) when the participants passively observed these pictures under different instructions were compared. We found a significant interaction of Instruction × Picture on the P3 component, where only under competitive instruction did the painful pictures elicit significantly larger amplitudes than the non-painful pictures, but not under the cooperative instruction. This result indicates that the participants were more responsive to other’s pain in a competitive context than in a cooperative context.

Cooperative Context Data Acquisition and Dissemination for Situation Identification in Vehicular Communication Networks

One of the most interesting recent topics in pervasive computing is the smart adaptive service support systems. These systems are impossible without knowing the context with the entity at the moment, what context was in the past and what is possible in the near future. The context alone is not so important in human oriented services provided in connected vehicles. In this environment we need to know not only the exact context but also the higher level information--situation. The situation awareness can be increased by exchanging it to other participating nodes--vehicles. Because the vehicular communication network is a very dynamic environment, it is essential to adequately respond to the user's needs and to provide all the needed services in the right place at the right moment and in the right way. In this work we present our developed cooperative context data acquisition and dissemination model for situation identification in vehicular communication networks. Our solution is different from others as it uses additional virtual context information source--information from other vehicles is weighted and exchanged using the utility function. The proposed decision support system decides if the message should be transmitted to other vehicles, sent to the cloud, saved locally or dismissed. The simulation results show the promising context exchange rate between vehicles and huge saving on channel utilization.

A value-creating framework for enhancing entrepreneurial learning in networks

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize and outline the social infrastructure that nurtures and strengthens cooperation in business networks promoting cultural tourism and thereby facilitates entrepreneurial learning. The role of the higher-education (HE) provider is emphasized on different levels of the value-creating framework. Design/methodology/approach – To explore and analyze the benefits of cooperation in business networks promoting cultural tourism as perceived by entrepreneurs, participants in the fields of both culture and tourism in two workshops were observed. From the information produced in the workshops, ethnographically oriented data were selected. Findings – Benefits that inspired cooperation among the members of the tourism business network were identified, which were categorized as functional, relational and symbolic. On the functional level, the actors involved, the entrepreneurs, considered it important to have an opportunity to meet and discuss in a stimulating atmosphere. The role of the HE provider at this stage was that of a facilitator, in other words, to set the scene. On the level of relational cooperation it was more important to foster relations between the network actors, and the provider’s role changed to that of a matchmaker. On the symbolic level, it is essential that all parties of the cooperation work together to find new business solutions based on common values. At this stage, the role of the HE provider is that of a co-creator. Research limitations/implications – As a case study, this research represents the local context of entrepreneurial cooperation in business networks promoting cultural tourism. Further study is needed to develop a framework that encompasses change in the traditional roles of the learning environment. Practical implications – Teaching and training approaches derive from the contexts in which micro and small businesses and their networks learn. HE offers students a safe environment in which to experiment and innovate, thereby linking student academic work to “real-life” project performance. Originality/value – Interaction/network theory is combined with the discussion on entrepreneurial learning.

Salivary oxytocin increases concurrently with testosterone and time away from home among returning Tsimane' hunters.

Oxytocin, testosterone and cortisol can have opposing effects on social behaviour, yet few studies have examined their interactions. We measured changes in salivary oxytocin, testosterone and cortisol among Tsimane' men returning home after hunting, an ancient context of male status competition, parental investment and cooperation. Contra normal diurnal rhythm, oxytocin increased relative to baseline and this increase was positively associated with duration of the hunt and change in testosterone, but not cortisol, social context, hunting outcome or physical activity. The concurrent increase in endogenous peripheral oxytocin and testosterone is unexpected given their opposing independent effects on social cognition and behaviour, and has not been observed before. We discuss the potential significance of these effects for the biology of pair-bonding, parenting and social foraging in humans and other species.

Participatory Action Research for Development of Prospective Teachers' Professionality during Their Pedagogical Practice

Abstract Implementation of participatory action research during pedagogical practice facilitates sustainable education because its objective is to understand professional practice, enrich the capacity of involved participants and an opportunity to make inquiries for the improvement of quality. In the research of professional practice, subjects explore themselves; research is critically informative, active and action-oriented. Basing on the analysis of the prospective teachers' professional independence formation during pedagogical practice, the conditions for the individual's sustainable professional development are updated, the principles of organising pedagogical practice are determined. The experts' opinion method was applied in the evaluation of the developed practice model. Four experts from four Latvian universities were involved in the questionnaire; the content analysis of expert opinions was performed. As a result, the opportunities of the developed model to ensure sustainable education as well as its strengths and weaknesses were determined. Activation of the holistic and action approaches to develop students' independent professional activity and ensure sustainable education, cooperation context, targeted planning of the student-centred process, orientation to students' self-experience, respect of research aspects were completely appreciated.

The Applicable Strategy for the Courses Alliance in Regional Universities Based on MOOC Platform

Massive open online courses is a kind of learning phenomenon which has just emerged in recent years. MOOC are popular in all countries by its virtues especially it can help students to learn from high quality resources. Now more people hope to establish the course alliance among colleges or universities. This presentation will discuss connotation of course alliance and analyze its current situation in China. In the end we design the direction of Technology & Art of TV Shooting course alliance made up of some universities in Jilin Province. The aim is to produce best learning resources and opening up new way of thinking in classes. So it can give students full exploratory learning with communication, cooperation and also supported by expert guidance. This approach can make the best of combination of virtual reality and true reality. We hope learning will no longer just to accept knowledge and information, but it can enhance people to explore the unknown knowledge and acquire pleasant experience in cooperative context.

Impact of Goal Orientation Theory on Social Capital: The Implications for Effective Team Cooperation in Uzbekistan Textile Industry

The aim of the investigation was to identify and explain impact of performance orientation and learning orientation on the elements of social capital. A research model was based on goal orientation and social capital theory. A critical literature review on cooperation, social capital and goal orientation was conducted and the foundation for research was built. Ultimately cooperation within research and development teams in textile industry in Uzbekistan was assessed. Findings suggest there is a positive impact of learning orientation on social capital. However, there is no significant influence of performance orientation on any element of social capital. Furthermore, the study confirms the value of social capital in explaining cooperation. Along with these findings, integration of goal orientation theory and social capital theory in the cooperation context is a major contribution of the research. The study helps managers and team members to better understand the importance of social capital generation on projects and in organizations. The developed concept can be used as a framework for facilitating cooperation for governments, research institutions, academic institutions and companies. There are also implications in the domains of staffing, training, organizational culture and motivating employees.

Bonobos and chimpanzees exploit helpful but not prohibitive gestures

Previous research has shown that chimpanzees exploit the behavior of humans and conspecifics more readily in a competitive than a cooperative context. However, it is unknown whether bonobos, who outperform chimpanzees in some cooperative tasks, also show greater cognitive flexibility in competitive contexts. Here we tested the cooperative-competitive hypothesis further by comparing bonobos and chimpanzees in a series of tasks where a human gesture indicated the correct (cooperative) or incorrect (competitive) choice. A human either pointed cooperatively to the object a subject should choose, or competitively to the object subjects should avoid choosing. In contrast to previous research, subjects were most skilled at choosing the correct location when the communicator was cooperative and there were no major differences between bonobos and chimpanzees. Analysis of gaze direction revealed that in some cases subjects visually followed the direction of the experimenter’s gesture despite choosing incorrectly, dissociating gesture following from gesture comprehension. This supports the hypothesis that, unlike human children, nonhuman apes respond to the direction of social gestures more readily than they understand the communicative intentions underlying them. We evaluate these findings in regard to previous studies comparing the cooperative and communicative skills of bonobos and chimpanzees.