Future Contests Research Articles

Luck, skill, and depth of competition in games and social hierarchies.

Patterns of wins and lo sses in pairwise contests, such as occur in sports and games, consumer research and paired comparison studies, and human and animal social hierarchies, are commonly analyzed using probabilistic models that allow one to quantify the strength of competitors or predict the outcome of future contests. Here, we generalize this approach to incorporate two additional features: an element of randomness or luck that leads to upset wins, and a "depth of competition" variable that measures the complexity of a game or hierarchy. Fitting the resulting model, we estimate depth and luck in a range of games, sports, and social situations. In general, we find that social competition tends to be "deep," meaning it has a pronounced hierarchy with many distinct levels, but also that there is often a nonzero chance of an upset victory. Competition in sports and games, by contrast, tends to be shallow, and in most cases, there is little evidence of upset wins.

When you come at the king: Opposition coalitions and nearly stunning elections

AbstractOpposition coalitions under electoral authoritarianism have been associated with greater likelihood of opposition victory and democratization. I argue, however, that coalitions also entail significant downside risks with implications for longer term prospects for democracy. Where coalitions produce strong electoral outcomes but fail to force turnovers, regimes are left with both the incentive and capacity to repress and reconsolidate power. I show cross‐nationally that opposition coalitions are associated with stronger opposition performance overall, but that when oppositions fail to take power, exceptionally strong performance is associated with greater autocratization in the subsequent years, including increased repression and poorer electoral quality in future contests. Probing the case of Cambodia, I demonstrate how the very features that make opposition coalitions a useful tool in strengthening performance also invite new threats from regimes. I argue that this makes coalition formation a particularly risky proposition.

The manipulation of identity politics in Indonesian electoral democracy today: Between regulations and practices

Electoral contestation in recent Indonesian election periods is faced with the challenge of polarization linked to identity politics, where initially assigned identity is leveraged as tools for political competition. This is a qualitative research, using interviews, observations, and direct group discussion methods to collect data from five different regions in Indonesia. The research focused on the presence of governing regulations and how they develop in complex dynamics. The results showed that identity politics was prevalent in all regions due to mobilization through identity manipulation to gain electoral political advantage. Furthermore, electoral characteristics showed a growing tendency toward polarization, primarily in terms of religion and ethnicity, with some issues related to regionalism, gender, religious affiliations, and family history networks. It was also found that weak regulations on identity manipulation led to increasing permissiveness among political actors, the state, and voters. This made identity issues become natural electoral problems, despite weakening the developing democracy in Indonesia. In this context, future contests in Indonesia are expected to consistently intensify identity politics, with the lack of regulations, permissiveness, and social media serving as the main driving factors.

Lessons learned from 10 years of wind tunnel tests on small wind turbines designed by students

This article discusses results from an international contest, open for university student teams (bachelor and master), involving the design, construction, and testing of small wind turbines in a large wind tunnel. The wind tunnel has an outlet of 2.85 x 2.85 m allowing a maximum rotor swept area of 2 m2 without significant tunnel effects. Both horizontal and vertical axis wind turbines are part of the competition. The turbines are evaluated by an external jury of industry experts based on criteria such as Annual Energy Production, cut-in wind speed, innovations, design, and sustainability. Although the contest has been initiated in 2013 with an educational focus, it has also evolved into a valuable database for scientific purposes by providing a decade worth of performance measurements for roughly 9-10 various turbine concepts each year. The collected data may serve as a unique validation resource for assessing the accuracy of design codes in modelling diverse turbine concepts thanks to detailed design reports with model descriptions accompanying each turbine (such turbine descriptions are often considered confidential for field measurements). The paper aims to explore the scientific value of this database by comparing calculations with measurements, offering explanations where possible, and reporting intriguing findings on unconventional concepts’ performance. Even though not all observations could be explained fully they provide food for thought. Recommendations are provided for both students to enhance their designs and for contest organizers to elevate the scientific value of the measurements in future contests.

Competition and Collaboration in Crowdsourcing Communities: What Happens When Peers Evaluate Each Other?

Crowdsourcing has evolved as an organizational approach to distributed problem solving and innovation. As contests are embedded in online communities and evaluation rights are assigned to the crowd, community members face a tension: They find themselves exposed to both competitive motives to win the contest prize and collaborative participation motives in the community. The competitive motive suggests they may evaluate rivals strategically according to their self-interest, the collaborative motive suggests they may evaluate their peers truthfully according to mutual interest. Using field data from Threadless on 38 million peer evaluations of more than 150,000 submissions across 75,000 individuals over 10 years and two natural experiments to rule out alternative explanations, we answer the question of how community members resolve this tension. We show that as their skill level increases, they become increasingly competitive and shift from using self-promotion to sabotaging their closest competitors. However, we also find signs of collaborative behavior when high-skilled members show leniency toward those community members who do not directly threaten their chance of winning. We explain how the individual-level use of strategic evaluations translates into important organizational-level outcomes by affecting the community structure through individuals’ long-term participation. Although low-skill targets of sabotage are less likely to participate in future contests, high-skill targets are more likely. This suggests a feedback loop between competitive evaluation behavior and future participation. These findings have important implications for the literature on crowdsourcing design, and the evolution and sustainability of crowdsourcing communities. Funding: This work was supported by the National Science Foundation [Grant IIS-1514283] and the U.S. Office of Naval Research [Grant N00014-17-1-2542]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2021.15163 .

The evolution trend and thinking of the modernization of command, control and communication system of American nuclear force

The nuclear force Command, Control and Communication System (NC3) is a variety of facilities required when the president issues nuclear operations instructions, is the central nervous system to achieve the United States "trinity" strategic nuclear strike, and is an important basis for achieving reliable and effective nuclear deterrence. The future contest between major powers is a comprehensive confrontation based on the comprehensive national strength of strategic nuclear forces. While the United States has the world's most advanced conventional combat forces and the largest nuclear Arsenal, it continues to apply new technological means to improve the operational command and control system of nuclear forces, upgrade its nuclear Arsenal, strengthen the construction and development of nuclear forces, and maintain its nuclear superiority. We should draw inspiration from this and speed up the independent research and development of a credible and reliable combat command system of nuclear forces to ensure that we will win the first opportunity in future wars.

Mendayung di Permukaan: Kritik Narasi Politik Jelang Pilihan Presiden 2024

The battle for political narratives ahead of the 2024 presidential election still leads to negative narratives such as issues of SARA, identity politics, hoaxes, black propaganda which cause polarization and division. The research intends to criticize this narrative so that the implementation of the 2024 election will run in a conducive and peaceful manner. The research method is a literature study on several articles that discuss political messages contained in narratives, campaigns or other political communication activities. Based on the findings, it seen that negative narratives have the potential to be reused in future contests. Elites need to be encouraged to work together and build a shared commitment to conduct political education, offer ideas and programs, reduce hoaxes, create new positive jargon and hashtags and design creative campaigns on social media. It creates politeness, mutual respect and foster civility as well as to reduce negative narratives in the public sphere upcoming presidential election contest.

Jumble judging: Cognitive and affective outcomes of intercollegiate collaboration at a soil judging competition

AbstractStudent–student interactions are influential parts of field experiences. While competitive judging events are a fun way to engage students in field‐based learning, the focus on competition leads to an atmosphere that discourages collaboration between students. The objective of this study was to evaluate the cognitive and affective learning outcomes resulting from intercollegiate collaboration at a soil judging competition. Teams with students from two to three different universities were assigned and referred to as jumble judging teams. Jumble judging was held for the first time in the 2021 Region 5 Collegiate Soil Judging Contest. Learning outcomes were assessed using a pre‐ and postsurvey, as well as group and individual reflections completed in the field. Student responses were generally positive, with 70% of students expressing agreement or strong agreement that they would like jumble judging to be included in future contests, 54% citing jumble judging as one of the best parts of the contest, and 93% identifying learning outcomes or describing an affective learning experience resulting from jumble judging. Evidence of both cognitive and affective learning were identified through student surveys and reflections. Overall, the event created a collaborative and collegial atmosphere and increased interaction between students from different universities, while maintaining the competitive nature of the event that motivates many students to get involved with judging teams.

Competitive programming participation rates: an examination of trends in U.S. ICPC regional contests

A wide range of benefits have been posited from participation in competitive programming contests. However, an analysis of participation in north American regional contests in the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) shows that participation in these contests is sharply declining, coinciding with the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, prior to the pandemic, while the number of teams participating in regional contests was increasing, the number of institutions sending teams to these contests was declining. We find several statistically significant correlations that may underscore structural reasons for this trend. Consistent participation in contests and the number of teams per institution sent to a contest both are correlated with likely participation in future contests. On the other end of the spectrum, institutions sending a team to a contest for the first time in 3 years were much less likely to return in the next year. For this category of teams, if a team is unable to solve any problems in the contest, the institution is significantly less likely to send a team in the next year. Many of these contests have very challenging problem sets, and consequently, have many teams that fail to solve any problems. This result suggests that structuring the problem sets to increase the likelihood that most teams successfully complete problems would broaden participation in these contests.

Business plan competitions and nascent entrepreneurs: a systematic literature review and research agenda

Business plan competitions (BPCs) are opportunities for nascent entrepreneurs to showcase their business ideas and obtain resources to fund their entrepreneurial future. They are also an important tool for policymakers and higher education institutions to stimulate entrepreneurial activity and support new entrepreneurial ventures from conceptual and financial standpoints. Academic research has kept pace with the rising interest in BPCs over the past decades, especially regarding their implications for entrepreneurial education. Literature on BPCs has grown slowly but steadily over the years, offering important insights that entrepreneurship scholars must collectively evaluate to inform theory and practice. Yet, no attempt has been made to perform a systematic review and synthesis of BPC literature. Therefore, to highlight emerging trends and draw pathways to future research, the authors adopted a systematic approach to synthesize the literature on BPCs. The authors performed a systematic literature review on 58 articles on BPCs. Several themes emerge from the BPC literature, including BPCs investigated as prime opportunities to develop entrepreneurial education, the effects of BPC participation on future entrepreneurial activity, and several attempts to frame an ideal BPC blueprint for future contests. However, several research gaps emerge, especially regarding the lack of theoretical underpinnings in the literature stream and the predominance of exploratory research. This paper provides guidance for practice by presenting a roadmap for future research on BPCs drawing from the sample reviewed. From a theoretical perspective, the study offers several prompts for further research on the topic through a concept map and a structured research agenda.

Competitive programming in computational thinking and problem solving education

AbstractBuilding practical programming competency requires a long‐lasting journey of discovery, trial and error, learning and improvement. This article presents essential findings of a case study of a Python programming contest with an automatic judgement system for Competitive Programming training extending the learning experiences for students in an introductory course, computational thinking and problem‐solving. The benefits and challenges are discussed. Due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) epidemic, a hybrid model of the contest was adopted, that is, some students participated in the contest on‐site, while others participated remotely. To alleviate human effort in judging the submissions, the DOMjudge platform, a web‐based automatic judgement system, has been deployed as an online automatic judgement system and contest management in competitive programming. The implementation roadmap and framework were provided. The contest problems and contestants' performances were discussed. Not many junior contestants could solve at least one problem(s), and competitive computing training should be offered if the students are keen on open competitions. An empirical study was conducted to evaluate the student feedback after the contest. Preliminary results revealed that the contest offering the chance to stimulate student learning interests could enhance their independent learning, innovative thinking and problem‐solving skills, and could thus lead to the overall benefits of the learning experiences, which further encourage them to participate in future contests to improve their learning and therefore enhance their employability. Employers often treasure student experiences in competitive programming events, like association for computing machinery programming contests, Google Code Jam or Microsoft Imagine Cup. Sharp vision requiring skills to tackle unseen problems within a short period is also instrumental to students planning for graduate school.

Preparing Students for the Real World of Conference Interpreting – Relay Simultaneous Interpretation Contest

Abstract With the aim of bringing interpretation trainees closer to the real world of multi-lingual conferences in China, Shanghai International Studies University held the first and second multi-lingual relay simultaneous interpreting contests in 2018 and 2019. From designing to organization and implementation, many practices were introduced for the first time in China. The event and experience are invaluable. This article provides a full landscape to the contest, including preparation, contest procedures, marking rules, improvements for future contests, problems encountered and further discussions for teaching of simultaneous interpreting. The experience will be of support for other future events of the discipline of interpretation.

Algorithm Contest of Calibration-free Motor Imagery BCI in the BCI Controlled Robot Contest in World Robot Contest 2021: A survey

Objective: From September 10 to 13, 2021, the finals of the BCI Controlled Robot Contest in World Robot Contest 2021 were held in Beijing, China. Eleven teams participated in the Algorithm Contest of Calibration-free Motor Imagery BCI. The participants employed both traditional electroencephalograph (EEG) analysis methods and deep learning-based methods in the contest. In this paper, we reviewed the algorithms utilized by the participants, extracted the trends and highlighted interesting approaches from these methods to inform future contests and research recommendations. Method: First, we analyzed the algorithms in separate steps, including EEG channel and signal segment setup, prepossessing technology, and classification model. Then, we emphasized the highlights of each algorithm. Finally, we compared the competition algorithm with the SOTA algorithm. Results: The algorithm employed in the finals performed better than that of the SOTA algorithm. During the final stage of the contest, four of the top five teams used convolutional neural network models, suggesting that with the rapid development of deep learning, convolutional neural network-based models have been the most popular methods in the field of motor imagery BCI.

Crowdsourcing to design a marketing package to promote a WHO digital mental health intervention among Chinese young adults

BackgroundDigital mental health is an emerging field that can leverage technology and mobile apps to deliver mental health treatment to populations in areas with limited mental health services. Despite widespread availability of these apps, uptake remains low. Enhanced marketing is necessary to increase public engagement. There is growing recognition that mental health intervention beneficiaries should be engaged in all phases of treatment development, adaptation, and delivery. Crowdsourcing – consulting the public to solve problems and sharing the solutions – can foster community-informed ideas for public health, but has yet been applied to digital mental health marketing. ObjectiveWith the goal of engaging potential intervention beneficiaries in digital mental health dissemination, the current project implemented a digital mental health crowdsourcing designathon for Chinese college students in Macao SAR, China and evaluated the feasibility of the contest and the products. The contest asked participants to design marketing packages for Step-by-Step, a scalable WHO digital mental health intervention focusing on depression. MethodsDesignathon participants, recruited from a global health class, were sorted into teams with balanced areas of expertise. Two judging panels – one of experts in relevant fields and another of Chinese college students – evaluated the marketing packages and selected finalists. The designathon was held in-person over four days and involved debriefing, workshops, a contest, and an awards ceremony. A parallel mixed-methods approach was applied, including qualitative feedback from judges and participants alongside quantitative data on participant satisfaction and depressive symptoms to enrich our understanding of the event. Additionally, based on judges' feedback given to participants, the communication packages of the contest were ranked. Results49 participants (8 teams of 6–7 members each) were involved in the designathon. Using a cutoff score of 10 on the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), 11.4% of participants had moderate or higher depressive symptoms. All teams successfully produced complete digital mental health marketing packages. Four finalists' packages were selected quantitatively with judges' scores and the top finalist's package was described by judges' comments as simple, thoughtful, and appealing, although not informative enough. Participants were overall satisfied with the designathon, but some mentioned that time was insufficient and that organization/instruction clarity could have been improved. ConclusionsThe designathon is a novel, feasible strategy to collect crowd input for the dissemination of a mental health intervention. Compared with traditional communication strategies, this bottom-up approach included and engaged potential intervention beneficiaries to take an active role in creating digital mental health marketing communication. Future contests should allow participants more time and reconsider aspects of event organization.

Vote Simulation Scripts and Test Deck Generators: Patents and User's Manuals May Play A Role in the 2020 Election Litigation

Introduction As judges seek to separate the fantastical from the plausible in election suits and related defamation cases, patents and user’s manuals may be a strong tool. When characterized as public records, business records, or opposing party statements, these documents may avoid many of the admissibility challenges that have plagued election cases. The documents also provide a level of neutrality and reliability that affidavits and expert witnesses do not—as it is what the voting equipment company claims about its own software, these documents serve as a mutually agreeable baseline for the equipment capability. The especially partisan nature of election contests makes this a unique virtue of the documents. As such, parties in ongoing and future cases should not overlook them in preparing for litigation. Background and Summary The question whether election machines can plausibly be electronically manipulated was once a less exceptional view in academia and the mainstream media. After widespread concern of Russian interference in the 2016 Election and bipartisan interest in securing future contests, significant private and governmental resources were aimed at investigating our country’s voting infrastructure. In 2018, the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine commissioned a study on how our election infrastructure can be strengthened. At DEF CON in 2019, the conference attendees famously hacked every single machine present “in ways that could alter stored vote tallies, change ballots displayed to voters, or alter the internal software that controls the machines.” As recent as January 2020, Congress called in the three largest providers of equipment for testimony. In an article on the hearing, NBC wrote “The three companies . . . are almost entirely unregulated. But in recent years, policymakers and election advocates have begun to question who owns the companies, how they make their machines and whether they could be susceptible to remote hacking.” Many in academia predicted that these claims and concerns would continue beyond the 2020 Election. They were correct. This has led to a slew of lawsuits and some high-profile defamation cases. Central to most of them is the question whether vote manipulation using an algorithm or vote simulation script is sufficiently plausible to adjudicate. Patents and user’s manuals often describe these functions and may be useful tools to judges seeking to answer this question. Two documents, a patent and a user’s manual, in particular will be used as a case study. Beginning with the patent, these documents’ usefulness and admissibility are each described in turn.

Sea Control: Feasible, Acceptable, Suitable, or Simply Imperative

As the United States faces a rise in credible antiaccess/area-denial (A2/AD) threats, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) started developing counteraccess denial strategies early in the twenty-first century. Access denial strategies are not a new defensive strategy; what makes access denial challenging on the modern battlefield is the dramatic improvement and proliferation of weapons capable of denying access to or freedom of action within an operational area. Through a historical review of Japanese naval battles during the early twentieth century, a framework to model possible future contests for control of the maritime domain is possible. Control of the maritime domain is the prerequisite for assured access and sets the condition for successful Joint operations. In this article, recommendations for achieving success in this new operating environment are offered, including investing in low-cost technology that extends ranges of A2/AD capabilities.

PSIV-33 The Animal Welfare Assessment Contest® as a Tool to Promote Animal Welfare Education

Abstract Established in 2001, the Animal Welfare Assessment Contest® (AWJAC®) aims to be an innovative educational tool for enhancing understanding and awareness of welfare issues affecting animals used for human purposes (e.g., research, agriculture, entertainment, companionship). The contest is open to participation by veterinary, undergraduate, and graduate students who may participate as individuals or as part of a team. A limited number of veterinarians are also eligible to compete as non-placing participants. Participation in the contest entails assessment of live and computer-based scenarios encompassing data, photographs, and videos of animals in comparable situations. Students then use the information obtained to rank the welfare of the animals in those situations on the basis of physiologic and behavioral indicators, with attention to facilities and management, and present their analyses orally to expert judges. The species featured change each year of the contest. At the completion of each contest, participants and coaches are asked to anonymously complete a written survey. The quantitative and qualitative results of this survey are used to determine if the contest has achieved its aims and incorporate suggestions for improvement of future contests. The majority of survey respondents from the five contests held between 2014–2018 report they either strongly agree or agree that the AWJAC increased their knowledge of animal welfare science (98%, n = 549) and was an overall valuable experience (99%, n = 547) that they would recommend to their peers (98%, n = 550). Respondents cited networking opportunities and diversity of species featured in the contest as key reasons the contest is valuable. Given these results, the AWJAC is successfully achieving its aims to increase animal welfare knowledge in an innovative way.

The impact of extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation, and social self-efficacy on English competition participation intentions of pre-college learners: Differences between high school and vocational students in Taiwan

Previous research on the English academic performance of students prior to entering college has shown that vocational school students have a lower mastery of the English language compared with their high school counterparts in Taiwan. The reason for this is a lack of and learning motivation. This study provided a community-based English reading contest for pre-college learners to improve their English learning motivations, and proposed a research model based on extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation, and social self-efficacy to predict learners’ participation intention in future contests. A total of 461 pre-college learners participated in the study. This study found that even though pre-test scores of vocational students prior to entering the contest were significantly lower than those of high school students, there were no significant differences between the English learning results of vocational and high school students after the contest. The study also showed that high school students had higher intrinsic motivation compared to vocational students, whereas vocational students had stronger extrinsic motivation and participation intention. This implies that organizers could enhance future EFL learning and participation through adoption of varying motivational or social strategies based on the characteristic differences of pre-college learners. Finally, we provide some recommendations that can be used for instructor reference in future when planning educational settings and pedagogies in EFL contests.

Liquidity constraints and the formation of unbalanced contests

We analyze the effects of future liquidity constraints on contestants’ investment in a dynamic contest model. Contestants invest in two consecutive contests to win a prize in each period. The loser of the first-period contest can be liquidity-constrained in the second period due to too little remaining wealth. The winner of the first contest can reinvest the prize in the second contest. We show that future liquidity constraints mainly affect the imbalance of the contest in the future but not today. Surprisingly, larger contest prizes decrease contestants’ future investments and amplify the imbalance of future contests. However, the contest organizer can reduce this imbalance by increasing the share of the prize money in the second contest.

When Is It Democratic to Postpone an Election? Elections During Natural Disasters, COVID-19, and Emergency Situations

Holding regular elections is an essential feature of democratic practices. The case for postponing elections is often made during emergency situations, however. Despite the critical nature of the i...