Cooperative Effect Research Articles

“Pecunia Olet” (Sometimes): A comparative analysis of Italian and UK legislations on combating the infiltration of organised crime into the economy

This article conducts a comparative analysis of Italian and UK legislations concerning the infiltration of organised crime into the economy. Considering (among other things) the concerns about allegedly weakened cooperation between judicial authorities of Italy and the UK in a post-Brexit era, the study evaluates the alignment of legal frameworks of the compared systems in combating the integration of organised crime and economic crime. The analysis is conducted on four levels: direct criminalisation of organised crime, the use of (also) anti-terrorism legislation to tackle organised crime, measures against wealth accumulation through crime, and provisions for corporate liability. By comparing the legal systems of Italy and the UK, which represent civil and common law traditions respectively, this study aims to identify convergences and divergences in legal approaches. The findings could inform strategies for enhancing mutual trust and fostering more effective international cooperation in combating the infiltration of organised crime into legitimate businesses, particularly in the post-Brexit context.

What builds inter‐municipal cooperation? Assumed and added effects of a metropolitan bicycle‐sharing project

AbstractInter‐municipal cooperation (IMC) is increasingly becoming a tool municipalities use to achieve development goals and increase public service quality. However, in Central and Eastern Europe countries, including Poland, such a modus operandi is less common due to administrative and legal considerations. This article analyses one bicycle‐sharing project carried out jointly by 14 municipalities of the Gdańsk‐Gdynia‐Sopot metropolitan area in Poland. Based on a series of in‐depth interviews, the study aimed to consider what builds inter‐municipal cooperation at the local level. During the analysis, it proved that the various actors had different levels of commitment to cooperation based on substantive premises. Positive opinions about cooperation in the project resulted from partner and non‐hierarchical relations, fair and equal treatment without domination towards smaller municipalities. The study showed that in addition to the assumed effects of cooperation, the applied cooperation model allowed many added effects to be achieved, beneficial for all project partners.

Language-vision matching for text-to-image synthesis with context-aware GAN

Text-to-image generation (T2I) aims to produce visually compelling images while maintaining a high degree of semantic consistency with textual descriptions. Despite the impressive progress made by existing methods, there are problems with limited details of synthesized images and insufficient correlation between the provided text description and the generated images. To address these issues, we propose a Context-Aware Generative Adversarial Network (CA-GAN), which generates images aligned with the input text representations. Specifically, the Context-Aware Block (CA-Block) learns a semantic-adaptive transformation based on text style, enabling the effective fusion of text descriptions and image features for high-quality image generation with better language-vision matching. Furthermore, we propose an Attention Convolution Module (ACM) to identify greater representative traits and avoid the inability to capitalize on non-local contextual information, which enables our model to generate images that exhibit numerous detailed attributes while maintaining high-quality and semantic consistency. Thereafter, we integrate self-attention with convolution to enhance feature maps to reinforce the semantic information in the discriminator, emphasizing critical feature channels while suppressing extraneous information, ultimately yielding more detailed and richer images. The experimental results demonstrate the superiority of our method over the SOTA approaches. In addition, further studies confirm the effectiveness of the generated visual details, which exhibit a high degree of alignment with the input text descriptions. Notably, our attention mechanism showcases cooperative effects contributing to overall performance improvement. The code is available at: https://github.com/hylneu/CAGAN.

Coping with drug shortages: A study of government-enterprise option cooperation stockpiling strategies for drugs in shortage considering API surrogate stockpiling subsidies.

Drug shortage is a global problem, and the development of government-enterprise cooperative stockpiles of drugs in shortage, combining physical and production capacity, has become one of the most important means of coping with drug shortages. However, existing studies have tended to overlook the fact that shortages of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) have become an important constraint on production capacity stockpiling and that the lack of incentives and provisions for coordination of benefits have led to a double marginal effect of joint stockpiling by government and enterprises of drugs in shortage. Accordingly, this study introduced the option contract to the drug supply system composed of government and pharmaceutical enterprises and used the subsidy of API storage in lieu as an important initiative to incentivize the reserve of APIs, to construct a model of shortage drug reserve under the government's leadership. This study aims to improve the effect of government-enterprise joint stockpiling of drugs in shortage, which is of great theoretical and practical significance. According to the classification of production license types of pharmaceutical enterprises, this study established a three-level supply chain decentralized decision-making model consisting of the government, formulation enterprises, and API enterprises, and a two-level supply chain centralized decision-making model consisting of the government and API Formulation (API-F) integrated enterprises, respectively. By solving the inverse order derivation, the government-enterprise option cooperation conditions and optimal decision-making strategy were derived. The study results showed that: (i) The addition of enterprise API stockpiling mode can help the government conventional reserves, and enterprise production capacity reserves, broaden the way of drug reserves, and improve the effect of government-enterprise option cooperation; (ii) when the probability of drug shortages is high, the government should prefer the cooperation of API-F integrated enterprises, which is conducive to reducing intermediate links and government costs and improving the supply responsiveness to shortages of medicines; (iii) Setting appropriate government subsidies for API storage can incentivize enterprises to stockpile APIs and improve drug production capacity and physical supply response capability. This study took the problem of socialized stockpiling of drugs in shortage as an entry point and explored the problems and solution strategies in the government-enterprise cooperative stockpiling of drugs in shortage, which not only made some theoretical contributions to the application of options contract in the government-enterprise cooperative stockpiling of drugs in shortage but also provided new ideas and theoretical basis for the improvement of the stockpiling work of drugs in shortage.

Cooperative binding of bivalent ligands yields new insights into the guanidine-II riboswitch.

Riboswitches are involved in regulating the gene expression in bacteria. They are located within the untranslated regions of bacterial messenger RNA and function as switches by adjusting their shape, depending on the presence or absence of specific ligands. To decipher the fundamental aspects of bacterial gene control, it is therefore important to understand the mechanisms that underlie these conformational switches. To this end, a combination of an experimental binding study, molecular simulations and machine learning has been employed to obtain insights into the conformational changes and structural dynamics of the guanidine-II riboswitch. By exploiting the design of a bivalent ligand, we were able to study ligand binding in the aptamer dimer at the molecular level. Spontaneous ligand-binding events, which are usually difficult to simulate, were observed and the contributing factors are described. These findings were further confirmed by in vivo experiments, where the cooperative binding effects of the bivalent ligands resulted in increased binding affinity compared to the native guanidinium ligand. Beyond ligand binding itself, the simulations revealed a novel, ligand-dependent base-stacking interaction outside of the binding pocket that stabilizes the riboswitch.

PERCEIVED EFFECT OF PALM OIL COOPERATIVES IN CREDIT DELIVERY TO MEMBERS IN AKWA IBOM STATE

The study assessed the perceived effect of palm oil cooperatives in credit delivery to members in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. Specifically, the study described the socio-economic characteristics of the cooperators, examined the perceived effect of cooperatives on economic activities of members, assessed the benefits members derived from cooperative societies, and examined the challenges faced by the cooperators. Sample size of 201 palm oil cooperators were randomly selected using Taro Yamane formula from the list of palm oil cooperative societies in the study area. Data collected were analyzed using percentages, mean, Pearson product-moment correlation, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and t-test. The finding shows mean age of cooperators was 46.2 years, the majority (69.2%) were female, married (71.6%), a larger portion (97.0%) had formal education. The mean household size, farming experience and annual income were 6 persons, 9 years and N159,145 respectively. The results showed a positive and significant relationship between cooperative societies and the economic activities of members. Also, the cooperative societies benefit their members by having access to loans. Challenges affecting the cooperative were grouped into socio-economic, organizational and institutional problems. The study recommended among others; that the organization seek better strategies of building their capital, more avenues of internally generated revenue should be exploited to improve on their capital formation rates. Moreso, cooperatives should devise better channel of credit delivery to members in terms of the ability to sustain the loan delivery function.

How Does University-Industry Collaboration Drives the Green Innovation?

Breaking through the company’s own green knowledge barriers through school-enterprise cooperation has become an important means for companies to expand market competitive advantages and environmental governance. This article uses China’s non-financial listed company data from 2010 to 2021 to study the causal effect of school-enterprise cooperation on corporate green innovation. The results passed a series of robustness tests and confirmed that school enterprise cooperation can improve the level of green innovation of enterprises. This paper also uses the instrumental variable method to mitigate the causal relationship between the two. The results show that school-enterprise cooperation can still significantly improve corporate green innovation. The results of the mechanism test confirm that school-enterprise cooperation will promote corporate green innovation by reducing corporate green innovation risks and easing corporate financing constraints. At the same time, the heterogeneity analysis results show that school-enterprise cooperation has a better effect on improving green innovation for enterprises in heavily polluting industries, enterprises in years with low economic policy uncertainty, and enterprises with a high degree of government-enterprise connection. The findings of this article help to understand the intrinsic mechanism between school-enterprise cooperation and corporate green innovation, and confirm that school-enterprise cooperation can improve the climate and environmental innovation system, which has important practical significance for the construction of the industry-university-research system.

Can standard cooperation enhance enterprises’ standardization capability: The moderating role of technological capability

The improvement of enterprises’ standardization capability can enhance the quality of products and services, thereby strengthening the core competitiveness. However, it is difficult for a single enterprise to master all the technologies, therefore, standard cooperation is an important channel for enterprises to obtain resources. This article investigates whether and how standard cooperation affects enterprises’ standardization capability. Using the survey data of 165 enterprises in the ICT industry, the study reveals the effectiveness of standard cooperation in promoting enterprises’ standardization capability. In particular, it examines the positive impact of standard cooperation depth and breadth on standardization capability. In addition, technological capability significantly enhances the positive impact of standard cooperation depth on enterprises’ standardization capability rather than that of standard cooperation breadth. Therefore, it is suggested that enterprises should optimize their standard cooperation network relationships, choose different partners according to their technological capabilities, and formulate differentiated standard competition strategies.

Elusive collaboration? The determinants of lead donorship in international development

AbstractLead donorship is a condition of sustained outsized responsibility by one foreign aid donor country for giving aid to a developing country. Prior research argues that lead donorship can either be a product of donors collaborating to carve out spheres of influence to maximize non-development foreign policy goals or else of donors buck-passing responsibility for addressing recipient needs. Which is it? This study seeks to answer this question using theory-driven expectations about when and where lead donorship should arise if donors cooperate or systematically fail to do so. It further develops novel measures of foreign aid’s public goods characteristics and donors’ marginal returns from giving aid that should help triangulate conditions under which we can expect lead donorship to arise due to cooperation or else its absence. Estimates from a flexible semi-parametric modeling strategy show that when and where lead donorship has the highest probability of occurring is consistent with systematic cooperation failure in the allocation of foreign aid. Various robustness checks are done and alternative explanations are also discussed. These findings provide insight into ongoing policy debates about donor cooperation and aid effectiveness and raise questions about what deeper strategic logics preclude donor cooperation.

Macroeconomic regulators of functioning of agro-industrial complex of the Republic of Kazakhstan: key directions

The goal is to develop effective tools for macroeconomic policy for the innovative development of AIC of the republic. Methods – abstract-logical, economic-statistical, system approach, comparative analysis. Results - the article shows the role of agro-industrial complex in achieving strategic goals: ensuring food security, increasing export potential, increasing the competitiveness of market entities on domestic and foreign markets. The evolution of agricultural industry in economically developed countries is considered: inter-sectoral cooperation, effectiveness of specialization, cooperation, production and economic ties during integration. The features of agro-industrial production and the key problems of its development are presented. The main factors constraining the strengthening of innovation and investment orientation of enterprises in the system of measures aimed to achieve full use of limited resources have been identified. Ways to form macroeconomic environment are proposed - necessary condition for stimulating entrepreneurial activity. The place and importance of total expenditures in solving the assigned tasks, the state budget deficit and methods of financing, methods of regulating banking, new monetary policy, tax and insurance systems and directions for their improvement, main components of transformation of agricultural sector into national innovation system are outlined. Conclusions - the strategic course towards innovative processes in agriculture is determined by global and domestic trends, the use of the latest resource-saving technologies and their rational use, contributes to stable increase in the level of domestic consumption, reduction in import volumes due to substitution of domestic food products. The article was written based on the research results on the project: AR19678876 “Effective system of macroeconomic instruments for state regulation of innovative development of AIC of the RK.”

The effect of dental hygienist work cooperation and compensation satisfaction on job embeddedness: mediating effect of positive psychological capital

The effect of dental hygienist work cooperation and compensation satisfaction on job embeddedness: mediating effect of positive psychological capital

International cooperation in public control of local governments: lessons for Ukraine

The purpose of this article is to examine the legal framework and general theoretical aspects of the formation and implementation of state policy regarding public control over local self-government bodies, comparing regulations in Ukraine and European Union member states. The study employs dialectical, synthesis, and theoretical analysis methods to investigate public control in Ukraine, and systemic-structural, formal-logical, and comparative-legal methods to compare public control practices in Ukraine and other countries. The research highlights that international experience is crucial for improving the functioning of local self-government bodies in Ukraine, and public control over their activities is a factor stimulating the improvement of the implementation of their powers. The need for all countries to coordinate and improve the legal framework for effective cooperation at the municipal level is emphasized. The study notes that under martial law in Ukraine, methods of public control over the functioning of local self-government bodies are limited. Based on the analysis of the aforementioned works, forms of international cooperation in the field of public control over the exercise of local power have been determined.

Hollow engineering and component optimization strategy to construct flower-like yolk-shell structure SiO2@Void@C@WS2 multicomponent nanocomposites for microwave absorption

Hollow engineering plays a crucial role in enhancing interfacial polarization, which is an essential factor in microwave absorption. Herein, an in-situ growth approach was adopted to successively coating C layer and WS2 nanosheets on the surface SiO2 nanosphere. The obtained results suggested that the formed SiO2@Void@C@WS2 multi-component nanocomposites (MCNCs) reveal a representative flower-like yolk-shell structure, which were manufactured massively through a simple channel. Additionally, the obtained SiO2@Void@C@WS2 MCNCs presented a more and more obvious yolk-shell structure and reduced WS2 content with decreasing the addition of SiO2@C or tungsten and sulfur sources. Because of their distinctive structures and remarkable cooperative effects, the SiO2@Void@C@WS2 displayed excellent microwave absorption performances. Through the majorization of hollow structure and WS2, improved properties of SiO2@Void@C@WS2 MCNCs could be acquired owing to their boosted polarization and conductive loss capabilities. Amongst, the resulting SiO2@Void@C@WS2 MCNCs exhibited the effective absorption band and minimum reflection loss values of 5.40 GHz and −45.50 dB with matching thicknesses of 1.78 and 1.55 mm, respectively. Therefore, our findings employed hollow engineering and optimization strategies for components to design and fabricate the yolk-shell structure flower-like MCNCs, which acted as highly efficient wide-band microwave absorbing materials.

The Effectiveness of Implementing Local Taxpayer Status Confirmation for Investors in the City of Blitar

This article discusses the effectiveness of confirming the status of regional taxpayers in Blitar City based on the Regulation of the Minister of Home Affairs Number 112 of 2016. This research uses Lawrence Meir Friedman's theory of the legal system and Soerjono Soekanto's theory of Law Enforcement. The results of the legal structure analysis show the success of the Regional Finance and Asset Management Agency (BPKAD) and the One-Stop Investment and Integrated Services Office (DPMPTSP) in coordinating and accessing tax applications, which significantly improves service efficiency. The legal substance of Regulation Number 112 of 2016 has proven effective as the basis for the Regulation of the Mayor of Blitar Number 73 of 2019. Legal culture analysis reveals effective public compliance with the taxpayer's status confirmation procedure before receiving services, without any protests. Thus, implementing the regulation in Blitar City can be considered successful, creating effective cooperation between related agencies, ensuring taxpayer understanding and compliance, and improving the quality of public services.

The Impact of Demonstration Cooperatives on the “Empty Shell” of Farmer Professional Cooperatives in China

With the advancement of farmer professional cooperatives in China, the prevalence of the “empty shell” phenomenon has posed a significant challenge to the health and sustainability of these cooperatives. Utilizing data from 1570 such cooperatives in Guizhou Province, China, this study uses the multi-time differential model and the spatial Durbin model to study the impact of demonstration cooperatives on the “empty shell” of cooperatives and the spatial spillover effect of demonstration cooperatives. The study results show the following: (1) Agricultural professional cooperatives are rated as national or provincial demonstration cooperatives, which are conducive to their development, and the policy evaluation of demonstration cooperatives can effectively inhibit the “empty shell” phenomenon of cooperatives. (2) National and provincial demonstration cooperatives can effectively inhibit the “empty shell” of cooperatives in the region. (3) When there are provincial demonstration cooperatives in the surrounding areas, there will be a spatial spillover effect and the empty shell of regional cooperatives will be inhibited. However, to restrain the “empty shell” of cooperatives, it is essential to capitalize on the spatial policy influence of “demonstration cooperatives” while being vigilant against potential spatial siphoning effects.

What Smallholders Want: Effective Strategies for Rural Poverty Reduction

Since poverty is particularly concentrated amongst smallholder farmers, development programs intend to support rural livelihoods and agricultural entrepreneurship. The final impact of these programs remains, however, rather limited due to insufficient understanding of key challenges that smallholder families are facing. Many well-intended initiatives for reinforcing smallholder production systems and for strengthening their commercial relationships meet conceptual and practical limitations that reduce their effectiveness. Smallholder livelihoods are most constrained because behavioural drivers for adopting innovations and for upgrading value-chain relationships are not well understood and are frequently overlooked. This article discusses the analytical linkages between the key causes of smallholder poverty, the constraints that limit the effectiveness of ongoing rural development initiatives, and the prospects for alternative strategies to support behavioural change. A better understanding of what smallholders want and need may lead to fundamentally new policy propositions. It is argued that technological change in smallholder production or integration into market systems will only take place if embedded in behavioural change mechanisms that are complemented by appropriate institutions and governance regimes. This asks for coordinated structural reforms in farm and community organisation, value chain integration and more effective public-private cooperation.

THE GLOBAL INVESTMENT ENVIRONMENT AND THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM OF FOREIGN INVESTMENT REGULATION / ГЛОБАЛЬНАЯ ИНВЕСТИЦИОННАЯ СРЕДА И МЕЖДУНАРОДНАЯ СИСТЕМА РЕГУЛИРОВАНИЯ ИНОСТРАННЫХ ИНВЕСТИЦИЙ

The global investment environment is considered one of the key factors in attracting foreign investors to the country. It creates the general atmosphere and conditions in which investments are made at the international level. It is particularly relevant to the global investment environment as regulated development and effective cooperation of bilateral and multilateral relations of Armenia with all states and organizations. The purpose of the article is to formulate practical recommendations for improving a prosperous investment environment and regulating foreign investment. The objective of the research was to study the issues of the global investment environment and the international system for regulating foreign investment and reviewing the relevant international documents. In the framework of the article, using logical, analytical, systemic-structural, interpretive methods, problems associated with the global investment environment and the international system for regulating foreign investment are explored in the article. As a result of studies and analyses, it is recommended to organizationally ensure the practical implementation of the provisions laid down by the international system of foreign investment. As a result of the analysis, the following scientific novelty was obtained: the global investment environment directly affects the volume of foreign investment, which, in turn, determines the level of state integration into the world economy. The obtained results can be useful to industry managers, interested in the industry, researchers and civil society.

Moss-like Ti3C2Tx based Fe/H2V3O8 composite as bifunctional electrode material for ammonium ion and zinc ion storage

The research on aqueous energy storage system is of significance due to its high security and economic friendliness. Herein, a moss-like Ti3C2Tx@Fe/H2V3O8 is synthesized by a simple hydrothermal method, in which Ti3C2Tx layers can act as scaffold to boost electric conductivity and suppress vanadium solution, H2V3O8 nanorods can expand electrode/electrolyte contact area and prevent aggregation, while Fe doping can optimize electric band structure effectively. Due to the cooperative effect of three components and distinctive structure of material, the Ti3C2Tx@Fe/H2V3O8 shows superior NH4+ storage capacity with superior capacity of 284.4 mAh g−1 at 0.5 A g−1 and high energy density of 48.64 mAh g−1 at power density of 166.9 W g−1. In addition, the Ti3C2Tx@Fe/H2V3O8 shows high capacity of 356 mAh g−1 at 0.1 A g−1 and stable long-cycling durability with outstanding capacity retention after 2000 cycles in Zn2+ storage application. The results reveal the great potential of Ti3C2Tx@Fe/H2V3O8 in aqueous ion battery application through rational structure design and synergistic effect of each component.

Transition from dynamic equilibrium to unconstrained growth in cooperative systems

We introduce a model of cooperative evolution of agents (CE model) on any lattice or graph with agents that have only one opportunity to evolve or grow during their lifespan, then shrink or shrivel to die. The CE model cooperative rule: growing agents meet in the model space, and each agent involved is granted a bonus lifespan. Such synergy is easy to find in studies of social media, economics, epidemiology, etc.In the current work, the CE model uses the 2D square regular lattice cellular space and the simplest evolution rules. Numerical simulation shows that the bonus lifespan introduces a threshold into the CE model and the agent-occupied space shows chaotic behavior depending on the CE model parameters.The CE model of cooperative evolution is rather simple but opens up many possibilities for further research to understand in depth the effects of cooperation and synergy, and thus on real-life evolution.

Highly efficient electrochemical ascorbic acid determination via a cooperative catalytic effect of dendritic Bi/Bi2O3 junctions and oxygen vacancies

This study developed an electrochemical sensor for ascorbic acid (AA) using dendritic nanostructured (DN) bismuth/bismuth oxide thin films with oxygen-deficient (SOD) surfaces (SOD-DN Bi/Bi2O3-x thin films) that were successfully fabricated through electrodeposition on fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) substrates. Using cyclic voltammetry and amperometry, we assessed electrocatalytic activity in neutral media. The prepared SOD-DN Bi/Bi2O3-x thin film was used, for the first time, as electrodes in a highly sensitive and selective electrochemical AA sensor. The SOD-DN Bi/Bi2O3-x thin film with optimal characteristics was shown to be ultrasensitive in AA detection in neutral conditions, whereby high detection sensitivity ∼ 2.30 µA µM-1cm−2 over a wide range of AA concentration ∼ 0.01 µM to 1.0 mM and working potential range ∼ 0.3–1.0 V vs. SCE. The results indicate that SOD-DN Bi/Bi2O3-x can provide large amounts of active reaction sites, thereby enhancing electrocatalytic activity and electrochemical sensitivity. Due to this, it is a unique electrochemical sensor able to detect AA without interference from DA, UA, or other contaminants. A further amperometric test demonstrated that this sensor was capable of detecting AA even under conditions of dopamine and uric acid. Accordingly, the proposed sensor provides a promising avenue for developing electrochemical sensing for AA determination. This strategy introduces a novel type of high-efficiency electrocatalyst for ultrasensitive detection of medical and environmental biomarkers.