Evolution Of Cooperation Research Articles

Stability Analysis of EPC Consortium Cooperation Based on Evolutionary Game

Consortium contracting is a contracting model that China encourages and advocates. Due to the interest drive, members within the consortium are very prone to negative cooperation and midway withdrawal, which hinders the healthy development of the consortium. Therefore, this paper constructs a game model of EPC consortium cooperation evolution, analyzes the influence of different reward and punishment mechanisms on the cooperation of consortium members, and applies system dynamics to simulation. The results show that under the static reward and punishment and dynamic reward mechanism, the consortium cooperation is not stable; while under the dynamic punishment mechanism and the dynamic reward and punishment mechanism in which the maximum punishment is greater than the maximum reward, the evolution of consortium cooperation is gradually stable and the behavioral strategies are gradually unified. It also puts forward suggestions for measures conducive to stabilizing cooperation, which provide certain reference value for the internal management of consortium members' cooperation.

India–Israel Cooperation in Spy Satellites: Materialism to Idealism

This article argues that India–Israel cooperation in space-based imagery originated under a realist logic but has been developing under an increasingly strong value-based commitment in countering terrorism. In this regard, the relationship is somewhat like the UK-US signals intelligence sharing arrangement that was originally formed to defeat the Axis powers but strengthened over shared values in countering communism and then international terrorism. To establish this, the article provides the first detailed account of the evolution of the Indo-Israel spy satellites cooperation and offers fresh insights into the future trajectory considering the recent security developments affecting India and Israel.

Cooperation among unequal players with aspiration-driven learning.

Direct reciprocity promotes the evolution of cooperation when players are sufficiently equal, such that they have similar influence on each other. In the light of ubiquitous inequality, this raises the question of how reciprocity evolves among unequal players. Existing studies on inequality mainly focus on payoff-driven learning rules, which rely on the knowledge of others' strategies. However, inferring one's strategy is a difficult task even if the whole interaction history is known. Here, we consider aspiration-driven learning rules, where players seek strategies that satisfy their aspirations based on their own information. Under aspiration-driven learning rules, we explore the evolutionary dynamics among players with inequality in endowments and productivity. We model the interactions among unequal players with asymmetric games and characterize the condition where cooperation is feasible. Remarkably, we find that aspiration-driven learning rules lead to a higher level of cooperation than payoff-driven ones over a wide range of inequality. Moreover, our results show that high aspiration levels are conducive to the evolution of cooperation when more productive players are equipped with higher endowments. Our work highlights the advantages of aspiration-driven learning for promoting cooperation among unequal players and suggests that aspiration-based decision-making may be more beneficial for the collective.

When selection pays: Structured public goods game with a generalized interaction mode.

The public goods game is a broadly used paradigm for studying the evolution of cooperation in structured populations. According to the basic assumption, the interaction graph determines the connections of a player where the focal actor forms a common venture with the nearest neighbors. In reality, however, not all of our partners are involved in every game. To elaborate this observation, we propose a model where individuals choose just some selected neighbors from the complete set to form a group for public goods. We explore the potential consequences by using a pair-approximation approach in a weak selection limit. We theoretically analyze how the number of total neighbors and the actual size of the restricted group influence the critical enhancement factor where cooperation becomes dominant over defection. Furthermore, we systematically compare our model with the traditional setup and show that the critical enhancement factor is lower than in the case when all players are present in the social dilemma. Hence, the suggested restricted interaction mode offers a better condition for the evolution of cooperation. Our theoretical findings are supported by numerical calculations.

Can institutions foster cooperation by wealth redistribution?

Theoretical models prescribe how institutions can promote cooperation in a population by imposing appropriate punishments or rewards on individuals. However, many real-world institutions are not sophisticated or responsive enough to ensure cooperation by calibrating their policies. Or, worse yet, an institution might selfishly exploit the population it governs for its own benefit. Here, we study the evolution of cooperation in the presence of an institution that is autonomous, in the sense that it has its own interests that may or may not align with those of the population. The institution imposes a tax on the population and redistributes a portion of the tax revenue to cooperators, withholding the remaining revenue for itself. The institution adjusts its rates of taxation and redistribution to optimize its own long-term, discounted utility. We consider three types of institutions with different goals, embodied in their utility functions. We show that a prosocial institution, whose goal is to maximize the average payoff of the population, can indeed promote cooperation-but only if it is sufficiently forward-looking. On the other hand, an institution that seeks to maximize welfare among cooperators alone will successfully promote collective cooperation even if it is myopic. Remarkably, even a selfish institution, which seeks to maximize the revenue it withholds for itself, can nonetheless promote cooperation. The average payoff of the population increases when a selfish institution is more forward-looking, so that a population under a selfish regime can sometimes fare better than under anarchy. Our analysis highlights the potential benefits of institutional wealth redistribution, even when an institution does not share the interests of the population it governs.

A VRC13-like bNAb response is associated with complex escape pathways in HIV-1 envelope.

The rational design of HIV-1 immunogens to trigger the development of broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) requires understanding the viral evolutionary pathways influencing this process. An acute HIV-1-infected individual exhibiting >50% plasma neutralization breadth developed neutralizing antibody specificities against the CD4-binding site (CD4bs) and V1V2 regions of Env gp120. Comparison of pseudoviruses derived from early and late autologous env sequences demonstrated the development of >2 log resistance to VRC13 but not to other CD4bs-specific bNAbs. Mapping studies indicated that the V3 and CD4-binding loops of Env gp120 contributed significantly to developing resistance to the autologous neutralizing response and that the CD4-binding loop (CD4BL) specifically was responsible for the developing resistance to VRC13. Tracking viral evolution during the development of this cross-neutralizing CD4bs response identified amino acid substitutions arising at only 4 of 11 known VRC13 contact sites (K282, T283, K421, and V471). However, each of these mutations was external to the V3 and CD4BL regions conferring resistance to VRC13 and was transient in nature. Rather, complete resistance to VRC13 was achieved through the cooperative expression of a cluster of single amino acid changes within and immediately adjacent to the CD4BL, including a T359I substitution, exchange of a potential N-linked glycosylation (PNLG) site to residue S362 from N363, and a P369L substitution. Collectively, our data characterize complex HIV-1 env evolution in an individual developing resistance to a VRC13-like neutralizing antibody response and identify novel VRC13-associated escape mutations that may be important to inducing VRC13-like bNAbs for lineage-based immunogens.IMPORTANCEThe pursuit of eliciting broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) through vaccination and their use as therapeutics remains a significant focus in the effort to eradicate HIV-1. Key to our understanding of this approach is a more extensive understanding of bNAb contact sites and susceptible escape mutations in HIV-1 envelope (env). We identified a broad neutralizer exhibiting VRC13-like responses, a non-germline restricted class of CD4-binding site antibody distinct from the well-studied VRC01-class. Through longitudinal envelope sequencing and Env-pseudotyped neutralization assays, we characterized a complex escape pathway requiring the cooperative evolution of four amino acid changes to confer complete resistance to VRC13. This suggests that VRC13-class bNAbs may be refractory to rapid escape and attractive for therapeutic applications. Furthermore, the identification of longitudinal viral changes concomitant with the development of neutralization breadth may help identify the viral intermediates needed for the maturation of VRC13-like responses and the design of lineage-based immunogens.

Evolution of cooperation in deme-structured populations on graphs.

Understanding how cooperation can evolve in populations despite its cost to individual cooperators is an important challenge. Models of spatially structured populations with one individual per node of a graph have shown that cooperation, modeled via the prisoner's dilemma, can be favored by natural selection. These results depend on microscopic update rules, which determine how birth, death, and migration on the graph are coupled. Recently, we developed coarse-grained models of spatially structured populations on graphs, where each node comprises a well-mixed deme, and where migration is independent from division and death, thus bypassing the need for update rules. Here, we study the evolution of cooperation in these models in the rare-migration regime, within the prisoner's dilemma. We find that cooperation is not favored by natural selection in these coarse-grained models on graphs where overall deme fitness does not directly impact migration from a deme. This is due to a separation of scales, whereby cooperation occurs at a local level within demes, while spatial structure matters between demes.

Role of military cooperation in Vietnam-Russia relations

The primary purpose of this article is the analysis of the evolution of bilateral relations between the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) and the Russian Federation in the field of military cooperation. It gives answers to following research questions: 1) what is the role of defence collaboration in bilateral ties, 2) what are the most essential elements of Russia-Vietnam military relations, 3) what are the common reasons/ incentives for developing links regarding arms trade, 4) do the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 and invasion of Ukraine in 2022 change goals of Vietnamese politics towards Moscow, 5) How do Chinese and US factor affect military cooperation between Russia and Vietnam? The theses of this paper assume that: 1) the government in Hanoi maintains friendly relations with Moscow on the political level in the face of the conflict in Ukraine and continues military cooperation, however Russian arms exports to Vietnam has declined, 2) Vietnam diversifies weapon trade partners expanding cooperation with Israel, Belarus, US and South Korea, but Russia still remains crucial arms importer for Hanoi.
 The analysis is focused mainly on the situation from 2002 to the present, and intends to examine the evolution of military cooperation between Hanoi and Moscow after the signing of the Declaration on Strategic Partnership. The article includes a short overview of Russia-Vietnam relations emphasizing its strong historical background. Paper is also focused on important arms trade contracts, agreements on military cooperation, includes statistics published by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) to show the scale of collaboration, and points out major challenges for future cooperation.

РОЗВИТОК АКАДЕМІЧНОЇ МОБІЛЬНОСТІ СТУДЕНТІВ У НІМЕЧЧИНІ

In today's globalised world, ties between countries are developing at all levels and in all areas, and education is no exception. Academic mobility is not only a matter of interest to academics, but also to political institutions and businesses. It brings states closer together, creates important and necessary links between their representatives, which will help to bring such cooperation to a new level in the future. The article analyses the development of academic mobility of students in Germany. In the course of the work, the author used a globalisation approach in order to correctly interpret Germany's foreign educational and cultural policy at all stages of its historical development. The paper uses historical analysis to chronologically describe the formation of the pan-European and German education and science policies. Comparative analysis is used to identify the peculiarities of academic mobility in Germany and in the European Union as a whole, as well as to trace the evolution of academic cooperation between states. The study identifies three stages of formation and development of academic mobility in Germany: the period of academic mobility's origin (XIV century - mid-twentieth century); the period of development of inbound mobility (mid-twentieth century - 80s of the twentieth century); the period of development of bilateral mobility (80s of the twentieth century - first quarter of the twenty-first century). It is stated that the signing of the Bologna Declaration had a tremendous impact on the development of international cooperation and the development of mobility between higher education institutions in Germany and the countries participating in the Declaration. It has been established that academic mobility is an effective mechanism for creating the image of the state and also has a mass effect.

Evolution of confrontation and cooperation in simple organisms as a function of environmental resources and cost of a conflict

AbstractThe root cause of human conflict needs to be understood but it is currently unknown whether the decision to engage in conflict is an inherited or acquired trait. This article reports two experimental simulations which demonstrate that the level of confrontation in a population of simple organisms can be explained by the evolution of a simulated gene pool. Game theory and evolutionary algorithms were combined in a novel way to examine how six variables influenced the decision to confront in the competition for resources. The main variable was how the genetically determined rate of confrontation evolved as a function of environmental resources and cost of a conflict. The additional modulatory effects of four other variables were also considered in the first round of simulations. Two variables were responsive to the difference between resources and cost. Two other variables were responsive to the organism's health status. Taking a systematic approach, we examined how a population of 1000 organisms were evolving in environments with different levels of reward and punishment. During each cycle, each organism was paired with another organism and thus needed to decide whether to confront or cooperate. We used a genetic algorithm to simulate the evolution of the gene pool over 500 cycles. The first series of simulations demonstrated that the baseline rate of confrontation was very responsive to environmental conditions. Our results also indicate that the decision to confront or cooperate depended not only upon the immediate competitive conditions, in which the organisms evolved, but were also responsive to their own health status. The second series of simulations used zero‐sum games to explore how risk levels varied as a function of the potential cost of engaging in a confrontation. In the second round of simulations, a simple form of memory was implemented. The results indicated that memory had a limited, but significant effect, while the cost of a conflict was highly predictive of the level of risk taken by the organisms. Our two series of simulations show that AI could contribute to answering psychological and societal questions. Our unique combination of techniques has brought to light several new insights into the mechanisms that drive the population towards cooperation and confrontation. The degree of generalizability of our results and future avenues for deepening our understanding of these evolutionary dynamics are discussed.

Paleogenomic insights into cooperation in the ancient Andes from positive selection on oxytocin pathway genes

AbstractHuman societies are characterized by norms that restrict selfish behavior and promote cooperation. The oxytocin system is an important modulator of social behavior that may be involved in the evolution of cooperation. Oxytocin acts in both the nucleus accumbens and the anterior cingulate cortex to promote social bonding and social cohesion. Expression of the CD38 and OXTR genes is known to affect oxytocin secretion and binding, respectively, in these brain areas. The Andean highlands provide an excellent opportunity to evaluate the role of oxytocin in the evolution of cooperation. The rich archeological record spans 13,000 years of population growth and cooperative challenges through periods of highland exploration, hunting economies, agro‐pastoralism, and urbanization. Through allele trajectory modeling using both ancient and contemporary whole genomes, we find evidence for strong positive selection on the OXTR and CD38 alleles linked with increased oxytocin signaling. These selection events commenced around 2.5 and 1.25 thousand years ago, placing them in the region's Upper Formative and Tiwanaku periods—a time of population growth, urbanization, and relatively low rates of violence. Along with remarkable and enduring cultural developments, increased oxytocin secretion and receptor binding in these brain areas may have facilitated large‐scale cooperation that promoted early urbanization in the Titicaca Basin of the Andean highlands.

Effects of group size and population size on the evolutionary stability of cooperation

Evolutionary game theory has classically been developed under the implicit assumption of an infinite population. Exact analytical results for finite populations are rare, and those that exist apply to situations in which strategy sets are discrete. We rigorously analyse a standard model for the evolution of cooperation (the multi-player continuous-strategy snowdrift game) and show that in many situations in which there is a cooperative evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) if the population isinfinite, there is no cooperative ESS if the population isfinite(no matter how large). In these cases, contributingnothingis a globally convergently stable finite-population ESS, implying that apparent evolution of cooperation in such games is an artefact of the infinite population approximation. The key issue is that if the size of groups that play the game exceeds a critical proportion of the population then the infinite-population approximation predicts the wrong evolutionary outcome (in addition, the critical proportion itself depends on the population size). Our results are robust to the underlying selection process.

Emergent Resource Exchange and Tolerated Theft Behavior Using Multiagent Reinforcement Learning.

For decades, the evolution of cooperation has piqued interest in numerous academic disciplines, such as game theory, economics, biology, and computer science. In this work, we demonstrate the emergence of a novel and effective resource exchange protocol formed by dropping and picking up resources in a foraging environment. This form of cooperation is made possible by the introduction of a campfire, which adds an extended period of congregation and downtime for agents to explore otherwise unlikely interactions. We find that the agents learn to avoid getting cheated by their exchange partners, but not always from a third party. We also observe the emergence of behavior analogous to tolerated theft, despite the lack of any punishment, combat, or larceny mechanism in the environment.

Co-evolution of heterogeneous cognition in spatial snowdrift game with asymmetric cost.

The emergence of the evolutionary game on complex networks provides a fresh framework for studying cooperation behavior between complex populations. Numerous recent progress has been achieved in studying asymmetric games. However, there is still a substantial need to address how to flexibly express the individual asymmetric nature. In this paper, we employ mutual cognition among individuals to elucidate the asymmetry inherent in their interactions. Cognition arises from individuals' subjective assessments and significantly influences their decision-making processes. In social networks, mutual cognition among individuals is a persistent phenomenon and frequently displays heterogeneity as the influence of their interactions. This unequal cognitive dynamic will, in turn, influence the interactions, culminating in asymmetric outcomes. To better illustrate the inter-individual cognition in asymmetric snowdrift games, the concept of favor value is introduced here. On this basis, the evolution of cognition and its relationship with asymmetry degree are defined. In our simulation, we investigate how game cost and the intensity of individual cognitive changes impact the cooperation frequency. Furthermore, the temporal evolution of individual cognition and its variation under different parameters was also examined. The simulation results reveal that the emergence of heterogeneous cognition effectively addresses social dilemmas, with asymmetric interactions among individuals enhancing the propensity for cooperative choices. It is noteworthy that distinctions exist in the rules governing cooperation and cognitive evolution between regular networks and Watts-Strogatz small-world networks. In light of this, we deduce the relationship between cognition evolution and cooperative behavior in co-evolution and explore potential factors influencing cooperation within the system.

Linked selection and the evolution of altruism in family-structured populations.

Much research on the evolution of altruism via kin selection, group selection, and reciprocity focuses on the role of a single locus or quantitative trait. Very few studies have explored how linked selection, or selection at loci neighboring an altruism locus, impacts the evolution of altruism. While linked selection can decrease the efficacy of selection at neighboring loci, it might have other effects including promoting selection for altruism by increasing relatedness in regions of low recombination. Here, we used population genetic simulations to study how negative selection at linked loci, or background selection, affects the evolution of altruism. When altruism occurs between full siblings, we found that background selection interfered with selection on the altruistic allele, increasing its fixation probability when the altruistic allele was disfavored and reducing its fixation when the allele was favored. In other words, background selection has the same effect on altruistic genes in family-structured populations as it does on other, nonsocial, genes. This contrasts with prior research showing that linked selective sweeps can favor the evolution of cooperation, and we discuss possibilities for resolving these contrasting results.

Coevolution of relationship and interaction in cooperative dynamical multiplex networks.

While actors in a population can interact with anyone else freely, social relations significantly influence our inclination toward particular individuals. The consequence of such interactions, however, may also form the intensity of our relations established earlier. These dynamical processes are captured via a coevolutionary model staged in multiplex networks with two distinct layers. In a so-called relationship layer, the weights of edges among players may change in time as a consequence of games played in the alternative interaction layer. As an reasonable assumption, bilateral cooperation confirms while mutual defection weakens these weight factors. Importantly, the fitness of a player, which basically determines the success of a strategy imitation, depends not only on the payoff collected from interactions, but also on the individual relationship index calculated from the mentioned weight factors of related edges. Within the framework of weak prisoner's dilemma situation, we explore the potential outcomes of the mentioned coevolutionary process where we assume different topologies for relationship layer. We find that higher average degree of the relationship graph is more beneficial to maintain cooperation in regular graphs, but the randomness of links could be a decisive factor in harsh situations. Surprisingly, a stronger coupling between relationship index and fitness discourage the evolution of cooperation by weakening the direct consequence of a strategy change. To complete our study, we also monitor how the distribution of relationship index vary and detect a strong relation between its polarization and the general cooperation level.

Complex pathways to cooperation emergent from asymmetry in heterogeneous populations.

Cooperation within asymmetric populations has garnered significant attention in evolutionary games. This paper explores cooperation evolution in populations with weak and strong players, using a game model where players choose between cooperation and defection. Asymmetry stems from different benefits for strong and weak cooperators, with their benefit ratio indicating the degree of asymmetry. Varied rankings of parameters including the asymmetry degree, cooperation costs, and benefits brought by weak players give rise to scenarios including the prisoner's dilemma (PDG) for both player types, the snowdrift game (SDG), and mixed PDG-SDG interactions. Our results indicate that in an infinite well-mixed population, defection remains the dominant strategy when strong players engage in the prisoner's dilemma game. However, if strong players play snowdrift games, global cooperation increases with the proportion of strong players. In this scenario, strong cooperators can prevail over strong defectors when the proportion of strong players is low, but the prevalence of cooperation among strong players decreases as their proportion increases. In contrast, within a square lattice, the optimum global cooperation emerges at intermediate proportions of strong players with moderate degrees of asymmetry. Additionally, weak players protect cooperative clusters from exploitation by strong defectors. This study highlights the complex dynamics of cooperation in asymmetric interactions, contributing to the theory of cooperation in asymmetric games.

Evolution of cooperation in the indefinitely repeated collective action with a contest for power

AbstractSocial and political inequality among individuals is a common driving force behind the breakdown in cooperation. In this paper, we theoretically and experimentally study cooperation among individuals facing a sequence of collective-action problems in which the benefits of cooperation are divided according to political power that is obtained through a contest. We have three main results. First, we find that cooperation predictably responds to the fundamental parameters of the collective-action problem. Specifically, it is increasing in the benefit to cooperation and how much benefit is gained from partial group cooperation, and decreasing in the number of players. Second, we find that when players are unrestricted in their expenditures in the contest, cooperation is much lower than when expenditures are set to a specific proportion of earnings. Finally, we find that individual norms and beliefs account for a substantial proportion of explained variance in individuals’ decisions to cooperate.

Cooperation and the social brain hypothesis in primate social networks

The social brain hypothesis posits that species with larger brains tend to have greater social complexity. Various lines of empirical evidence have supported the social brain hypothesis, including evidence from the structure of social networks. Cooperation is a key component of group living, particularly among primates, and theoretical research has shown that particular structures of social networks foster cooperation more easily than others. Therefore, we hypothesized that species with a relatively large brain size tend to form social networks that better enable cooperation. In the present study, we combine data on brain size and social networks with theory on the evolution of cooperation on networks to test this hypothesis in non-human primates. We have found a positive effect of brain size on cooperation in social networks even after controlling for the effect of other structural properties of networks that are known to promote cooperation.

Effects of individual and collective decision rule on cooperation in public goods game

Research on public goods game has traditionally focused on studying the effects of punishment and reward in experimental settings, commonly known as standard games. However, these standard games often examine isolated interactions among individuals, leading to varying results based on factors such as the population studied, number of participants, and geographical context. Consequently, the understanding of cooperation evolution remains imprecise.To address this limitation, we are trying to generalize these experimental studies, we employ an agent-based model in this study to simulate interactions in public goods game and explore the influence of punishment and reward on the evolution of cooperation. Unlike standard games, evolutionary games offer a more comprehensive framework to capture and analyze a broader range of strategic interactions and behaviors.In our approach, we introduce two methods for applying punishment or reward: Individual Punishment or Reward and Collective Punishment or Reward. Under the first method, actors can individually reward or punish each other based on their contributions or free-riding behavior towards the collective good. In the second method, decisions for punishment or reward are made collectively after achieving a consensus or agreement among the members of the group. We provide a model for comparing Individual Decision Rule and Collective Decision Rule under punishment and reward, to study their effects on the evolution of contributions.Consistent with recent experimental findings, our results indicate that these mechanisms lead to a significant increase in contributions compared to the outcomes observed in standard public goods game. Additionally, we demonstrate the significant role of rewards in promoting contribution within public goods game.