Widespread Cooperation Research Articles

A Vision for Green Foreign Direct Investment: Proposals for an Investor-State Collaborative Effort

Time is of the essence. With each passing day, the options and alternatives available to the peoples of the world to stem the tide of man-made destruction to the Earth are steadily disappearing. The Stockholm Treaty Lab challenged professionals from various disciplines to imagine and design strategies to mitigate and reduce the detrimental impact of human beings upon the planet. This article reflects the culmination of thought processes and ideas of one the participating teams. The team drafted a legal instrument within the currently existing U.N. infrastructure, and included a number of aspects advocating for its widespread adoption, seeking to incentivize parties with the power to effect environmentally sound change to be more active. Economists, business consultants, lawyers, and scientist sought to find solutions to three manmade issues, namely (1) food waste, (2) deforestation, and (3) lack of renewable energies. Each of these three categories represent a major exacerbating force upon climate change, yet are areas that could be drastically affected with cooperation among states and investors. Within each category, both general policies and specific solutions/incentives are outlined. Further, dispute resolution mechanisms and the imagined economic impact for investors financing these initiatives are discussed. It is the belief of the team that the problems considered by the article have little chance of being effectively addressed unless there is widespread cooperation, thus it is hoped that articles like this one can be the catalyst for that change.

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Does school closures affect the local social capital? Through a comparative study of school closures in the municipality of Tønder (Ballum and Bedsted), we argue that centralization and school closures can eliminate the positive externality of social capital. Centralization can thus lead to a loss in the form of less social capital, which the example from Ballum clearly shows. Thus, the local community is charged an additional and hidden cost. As the example from Bedsted shows, the establishment of a free school can maintain social capital where well-functioning social networks at the local level are allowed to survive and continue to flourish through widespread cooperation.

Hunter-Gatherers Maintain Assortativity in Cooperation despite High Levels of Residential Change and Mixing

Widespread cooperation is a defining feature of human societies from hunter-gatherer bands to nation states [1, 2], but explaining its evolution remains a challenge. Although positive assortment of cooperators is recognized as a basic requirement for the evolution of cooperation, the mechanisms governing assortment are debated. Moreover, the social structure of modern hunter-gatherers, characterized by high mobility, residential mixing, and low genetic relatedness [3], undermines assortment and adds to the puzzle of howcooperation evolved. Here, we analyze four years of data (2010, 2013, 2014, 2016) tracking residence and levels of cooperation elicited from a public goods game in Hadza hunter-gatherers of Tanzania. Data were collected from 56 camps, comprising 383 unique individuals, 137 of whom we have data for two or more years. Despite significant residential mixing, we observe a robust pattern of assortment that is necessary for cooperation to evolve; in every year, Hadza camps exhibit high between-camp and low within-camp variation in cooperation. We find little evidence that cooperative behavior within individuals is stable over time or that similarity in cooperation between dyads predicts their future cohabitation. Both sets of findings are inconsistent with models that assume stable cooperative and selfish types, including partner choice models. Consistent with social norms, culture, and reciprocity theories, the strongest predictor of an individual's level of cooperation is the mean cooperation of their current campmates. These findings underscore the adaptive nature ofhuman cooperation-particularly its responsiveness to social contexts-as a feature that is important in generating the assortment necessary for cooperation to evolve.

Effects of external forcing on evolutionary games in complex networks.

How did cooperation evolve in a complex network is an intensely investigated problem. Many mechanisms that promote cooperation have been proposed within the framework of the evolutionary game theory. Motivated by the fact that people in society or even a certain group are often controlled by a variety of simple rules, we present an external forcing mechanism to analyze the underlying reasons of widespread cooperation in this paper. In detail, we model the agents on a simple regular network, on which the learning method is controlled by external forcing mechanism, and prisoner's dilemma has been applied to describe the interaction of agents. By conducting large-scale Monte Carlo simulations, we can easily draw a conclusion that this mechanism can promote cooperation efficiently. In addition, we also show that the proposed mechanism is effective for the cooperation promotion for other game models, such as snowdrift game and multigames. Taken together, the mechanism of external forcing on the evolutionary game is a strong promoter of cooperation even under a severe temptation condition, which has a practical significance and will provide new insight into the analysis and control of cooperative strategy in the complex network for the further research.

Intrinsically Disordered Proteins Link Alternative Splicing and Post-translational Modifications to Complex Cell Signaling and Regulation

Intrinsically disordered proteins and regions (IDPs and IDRs) lack well-defined tertiary structures, yet carry out various important cellular functions, especially those associated with cell signaling and regulation. In eukaryotes, IDPs and IDRs contain the preferred loci for both alternative splicing (AS) and many post-translational modifications (PTMs). Furthermore, AS and/or PTMs at these loci generally alter the signaling outcomes associated with these IDPs or IDRs, where the functional cooperation of these three features is named the IDP–AS–PTM toolkit. However, the prevalence of such functional modulations remains unknown. Also, the signal-altering mechanisms by which AS, and PTMs modulate function and the extent to which AS and PTMs collaborate in their signaling modulations have not been well defined for particular protein examples. Here we focus on three important signaling and regulatory IDR-containing protein families in humans, namely, G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), which are transmembrane proteins; the nuclear factors of activated T cells (NFATs), which are transcription factors; and the Src family kinases (SFKs), which are signaling enzymes. The goals here are to determine how AS and PTMs individually alter the outcomes of the signaling carried out by the various IDRs and to determine whether AS and PTMs work together to bring about differential cellular responses. We also present data indicating that a wide range of other signaling IDPs or IDRs undergo both AS- and PTM-based modifications, suggesting that they, too, likely take advantage of signal outcome modulations that result from collaboration between these two events. Hence, we propose that the widespread cooperation of IDPs, AS and/or PTMs provides an IDP–AS–PTM toolkit and substantially contributes to the vast complexity of eukaryotic cell signaling systems.

Intrinsically Disordered Proteins Link Alternative Splicing and Post-Translational Modifications to Complex Cell Signaling and Reulation

Intrinsically disordered proteins and regions (IDPs and IDRs) lack well-defined tertiary structures, yet carry out various important cellular functions, especially those associated with cell signaling and regulation. In eukaryotes, IDPs and IDRs contain the preferred loci for both alternative splicing (AS) and many post-translational modifications (PTMs). Furthermore, AS and/or PTMs at these loci generally alter the signaling outcomes associated with these IDPs or IDRs, where the functional cooperation of these three features is named the IDP-AS-PTM toolkit. However, the prevalence of such functional modulations remains unknown. Also, the signal-altering mechanisms by which AS, and PTMs modulate function and the extent to which AS and PTMs collaborate in their signaling modulations have not been well defined for particular protein examples. Here we focus on three important signaling and regulatory IDR-containing protein families in humans, namely, G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), which are transmembrane proteins; the nuclear factors of activated T cells (NFATs), which are transcription factors; and the Src family kinases (SFKs), which are signaling enzymes. The goals here are to determine how AS and PTMs individually alter the outcomes of the signaling carried out by the various IDRs and to determine whether AS and PTMs work together to bring about differential cellular responses. We also present data indicating that a wide range of other signaling IDPs or IDRs undergo both AS- and PTM-based modifications, suggesting that they, too, likely take advantage of signal outcome modulations that result from collaboration between these two events. Hence, we propose that the widespread cooperation of IDPs, AS and/or PTMs provides an IDP-AS-PTM toolkit and substantially contributes to the vast complexity of eukaryotic cell signaling systems. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Utility Evaluation Based on One-To-N Mapping in the Prisoner's Dilemma Game for Interdependent Networks.

In the field of evolutionary game theory, network reciprocity has become an important means to promote the level of promotion within the population system. Recently, the interdependency provides a novel perspective to understand the widespread cooperation behavior in many real-world systems. In previous works, interdependency is often built from the direct or indirect connections between two networks through the one-to-one mapping mode. However, under many realistic scenarios, players may need much more information from many neighboring agents so as to make a more rational decision. Thus, beyond the one-to-one mapping mode, we investigate the cooperation behavior on two interdependent lattices, in which the utility evaluation of a focal player on one lattice may not only concern himself, but also integrate the payoff information of several corresponding players on the other lattice. Large quantities of simulations indicate that the cooperation can be substantially promoted when compared to the traditionally spatial lattices. The cluster formation and phase transition are also analyzed in order to explore the role of interdependent utility coupling in the collective cooperation. Current results are beneficial to deeply understand various mechanisms to foster the cooperation exhibited inside natural, social and engineering systems.

The anti-torture norm and cooperation in the CIA black site programme

Does the interstate cooperation in the CIA rendition programme imply the anti-torture norm was severely degraded in the war on terror? Most scholarship currently suggests yes, pointing to the widespread cooperation of dozens of states, including many liberal democracies, in a programme designed to facilitate torture. This article argues that this conclusion is driven primarily by a focus on outcome, that states cooperated, and ignores the process through which cooperation happened. Using the data provided in the Senate report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation programme, this article demonstrates that studying the process of cooperation instead of merely the outcome allows us to see that the anti-torture norm had continuous causal effects that are currently unrecognised in the literature. This finding not only provides a counterpoint to much of the literature on the United States rendition programme that focusses on the negative human rights outcomes, but also builds on research which has argued that fundamental international human rights norms were not as damaged by American conduct in the war on terror as many scholars and activists had initially feared.

Genome-Wide Transcriptional Regulation Mediated by Biochemically Distinct SWI/SNF Complexes.

Multiple positions within the SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling complex can be filled by mutually exclusive subunits. Inclusion or exclusion of these proteins defines many unique forms of SWI/SNF and has profound functional consequences. Often this complex is studied as a single entity within a particular cell type and we understand little about the functional relationship between these biochemically distinct forms of the remodeling complex. Here we examine the functional relationships among three complex-specific ARID (AT-Rich Interacting Domain) subunits using genome-wide chromatin immunoprecipitation, transcriptome analysis, and transcription factor binding maps. We find widespread overlap in transcriptional regulation and the genomic binding of distinct SWI/SNF complexes. ARID1B and ARID2 participate in wide-spread cooperation to repress hundreds of genes. Additionally, we find numerous examples of competition between ARID1A and another ARID, and validate that gene expression changes following loss of one ARID are dependent on the function of an alternative ARID. These distinct regulatory modalities are correlated with differential occupancy by transcription factors. Together, these data suggest that distinct SWI/SNF complexes dictate gene-specific transcription through functional interactions between the different forms of the SWI/SNF complex and associated co-factors. Most genes regulated by SWI/SNF are controlled by multiple biochemically distinct forms of the complex, and the overall expression of a gene is the product of the interaction between these different SWI/SNF complexes. The three mutually exclusive ARID family members are among the most frequently mutated chromatin regulators in cancer, and understanding the functional interactions and their role in transcriptional regulation provides an important foundation to understand their role in cancer.

Escaping the tragedy of the commons through targeted punishment.

Failures of cooperation cause many of society's gravest problems. It is well known that cooperation among many players faced with a social dilemma can be maintained thanks to the possibility of punishment, but achieving the initial state of widespread cooperation is often much more difficult. We show here that there exist strategies of ‘targeted punishment’ whereby a small number of punishers can shift a population of defectors into a state of global cooperation. We conclude by outlining how the international community could use a strategy of this kind to combat climate change.

Can government be self-organized? A mathematical model of the collective social organization of ancient Teotihuacan, central Mexico.

Teotihuacan was the first urban civilization of Mesoamerica and one of the largest of the ancient world. Following a tradition in archaeology to equate social complexity with centralized hierarchy, it is widely believed that the city’s origin and growth was controlled by a lineage of powerful individuals. However, much data is indicative of a government of co-rulers, and artistic traditions expressed an egalitarian ideology. Yet this alternative keeps being marginalized because the problems of collective action make it difficult to conceive how such a coalition could have functioned in principle. We therefore devised a mathematical model of the city’s hypothetical network of representatives as a formal proof of concept that widespread cooperation was realizable in a fully distributed manner. In the model, decisions become self-organized into globally optimal configurations even though local representatives behave and modify their relations in a rational and selfish manner. This self-optimization crucially depends on occasional communal interruptions of normal activity, and it is impeded when sections of the network are too independent. We relate these insights to theories about community-wide rituals at Teotihuacan and the city’s eventual disintegration.

Emergence of cooperation in non-scale-free networks

Evolutionary game theory is one of the key paradigms behind many scientific disciplines from science to engineering. Previous studies proposed a strategy updating mechanism, which successfully demonstrated that the scale-free network can provide a framework for the emergence of cooperation. Instead, individuals in random graphs and small-world networks do not favor cooperation under this updating rule. However, a recent empirical result shows the heterogeneous networks do not promote cooperation when humans play a prisoner’s dilemma. In this paper, we propose a strategy updating rule with payoff memory. We observe that the random graphs and small-world networks can provide even better frameworks for cooperation than the scale-free networks in this scenario. Our observations suggest that the degree heterogeneity may be neither a sufficient condition nor a necessary condition for the widespread cooperation in complex networks. Also, the topological structures are not sufficed to determine the level of cooperation in complex networks.

A bottom-up institutional approach to cooperative governance of risky commons

Climate change cooperation has been limited by the lack of sanctioning mechanisms to deal with those who fail to abide by agreements. Research now shows that a bottom-up process, in which parties create local institutions that punish free-riders, promotes widespread cooperation as opposed to the traditional top-down approach that builds global institutions. Avoiding the effects of climate change may be framed as a public goods dilemma1, in which the risk of future losses is non-negligible2,3,4,5,6,7, while realizing that the public good may be far in the future3,7,8,9. The limited success of existing attempts to reach global cooperation has been also associated with a lack of sanctioning institutions and mechanisms to deal with those who do not contribute to the welfare of the planet or fail to abide by agreements1,3,10,11,12,13. Here we investigate the emergence and impact of different types of sanctioning to deter non-cooperative behaviour in climate agreements. We show that a bottom-up approach, in which parties create local institutions that punish free-riders, promotes the emergence of widespread cooperation, mostly when risk perception is low, as it is at present3,7. On the contrary, global institutions provide, at best, marginal improvements regarding overall cooperation. Our results clearly suggest that a polycentric approach involving multiple institutions is more effective than that associated with a single, global one, indicating that such a bottom-up, self-organization approach, set up at a local scale, provides a better ground on which to attempt a solution for such a complex and global dilemma.

Ldb1-nucleated transcription complexes function as primary mediators of global erythroid gene activation

AbstractErythropoiesis is dependent on the lineage-specific transcription factors Gata1, Tal1, and Klf1. Several erythroid genes have been shown to require all 3 factors for their expression, suggesting that they function synergistically; however, there is little direct evidence for widespread cooperation. Gata1 and Tal1 can assemble within higher-order protein complexes (Ldb1 complexes) that include the adapter molecules Lmo2 and Ldb1. Ldb1 proteins are capable of coassociation, and long-range Ldb1-mediated oligomerization of enhancer- and promoter-bound Ldb1 complexes has been shown to be required for β-globin gene expression. In this study, we generated a genomewide map of Ldb1 complex binding sites that revealed widespread binding at erythroid genes and at known erythroid enhancer elements. Ldb1 complex binding sites frequently colocalized with Klf1 binding sites and with consensus binding motifs for other erythroid transcription factors. Transcriptomic analysis demonstrated a strong correlation between Ldb1 complex binding and Ldb1 dependency for gene expression and identified a large cohort of genes coregulated by Ldb1 complexes and Klf1. Together, these results provide a foundation for defining the mechanism and scope of Ldb1 complex activity during erythropoiesis.

Reward from Punishment Does Not Emerge at All Costs

The conundrum of cooperation has received increasing attention during the last decade. In this quest, the role of altruistic punishment has been identified as a mechanism promoting cooperation. Here we investigate the role of altruistic punishment on the emergence and maintenance of cooperation in structured populations exhibiting connectivity patterns recently identified as key elements of social networks. We do so in the framework of Evolutionary Game Theory, employing the Prisoner's Dilemma and the Stag-Hunt metaphors to model the conflict between individual and collective interests regarding cooperation. We find that the impact of altruistic punishment strongly depends on the ratio q/p between the cost of punishing a defecting partner (q) and the actual punishment incurred by the partner (p). We show that whenever q/p<1, altruistic punishment turns out to be detrimental for cooperation for a wide range of payoff parameters, when compared to the scenario without punishment. The results imply that while locally, the introduction of peer punishment may seem to reduce the chances of free-riding, realistic population structure may drive the population towards the opposite scenario. Hence, structured populations effectively reduce the expected beneficial contribution of punishment to the emergence of cooperation which, if not carefully dosed, may in fact hinder the chances of widespread cooperation.

Coevolutionary Dynamics of Cultural Markers, Parochial Cooperation, and Networks

The emergence and institutionalization of cooperation in sizable groups without reciprocity receives considerable attention in game-theoretical modeling. Agents in our study play the Prisoner’s Dilemma game cooperating with tolerably similar neighbors. They may imitate cultural markers (tags) and tolerance from more successful neighbors. Alternatively, they break ties to out-group neighbors. New partners are selected either from neighbors’ neighbors (clustering) or randomly. Variations in network plasticity (the likelihood of changing partners rather than being influenced) and clustering are explored. With high plasticity and high clustering, networks tend to fragment. With low plasticity and low clustering, networks tend toward global cooperation, but with severe losses of cultural diversity and tolerance. Cooperation in such regimes also proves to be vulnerable to defection. Between, there is a space displaying relatively stable and widespread cooperation with diversity and tolerance. We note some important structural characteristics of the networks evolving in this space.

On the evolutionary origins of the egalitarian syndrome

The evolutionary emergence of the egalitarian syndrome is one of the most intriguing unsolved puzzles related to the origins of modern humans. Standard explanations and models for cooperation and altruism--reciprocity, kin and group selection, and punishment--are not directly applicable to the emergence of egalitarian behavior in hierarchically organized groups that characterized the social life of our ancestors. Here I study an evolutionary model of group-living individuals competing for resources and reproductive success. In the model, the differences in fighting abilities lead to the emergence of hierarchies where stronger individuals take away resources from weaker individuals and, as a result, have higher reproductive success. First, I show that the logic of within-group competition implies under rather general conditions that each individual benefits if the transfer of the resource from a weaker group member to a stronger one is prevented. This effect is especially strong in small groups. Then I demonstrate that this effect can result in the evolution of a particular, genetically controlled psychology causing individuals to interfere in a bully-victim conflict on the side of the victim. A necessary condition is a high efficiency of coalitions in conflicts against the bullies. The egalitarian drive leads to a dramatic reduction in within-group inequality. Simultaneously it creates the conditions for the emergence of inequity aversion, empathy, compassion, and egalitarian moral values via the internalization of behavioral rules imposed by natural selection. It also promotes widespread cooperation via coalition formation.

Rotating the Necker cube: A bioeconomic approach to cooperation and the causal role of synergy in evolution

The paradox of widespread cooperation in an intensely competitive natural world has been a major focus of theory and research in evolutionary biology and related disciplines over the past several decades. While much of the earlier work in this vein was gene-centered and grounded in inclusive fitness (or kin selection) theory, more recent developments suggest that it might also be useful to view cooperation (and biological complexity) from a bioeconomic perspective. Here I will briefly explore the case for a paradigm shift, with special reference to the role of functional synergy as a distinct class of interdependent causal influences in evolution. I will argue that synergies of various kinds have been important drivers for cooperation in living systems at all levels. From this perspective, inclusive fitness and other factors may be enablers for cooperation, but the many exceptions show that genetic relatedness is neither necessary nor sufficient for the emergence of cooperative phenomena.

The roots of modern justice: cognitive and neural foundations of social norms and their enforcement

Among animals, Homo sapiens is unique in its capacity for widespread cooperation and prosocial behavior among large and genetically heterogeneous groups of individuals. This ultra-sociality figures largely in our success as a species. It is also an enduring evolutionary mystery. There is considerable support for the hypothesis that this facility is a function of our ability to establish, and enforce through sanctions, social norms. Third-party punishment of norm violations ("I punish you because you harmed him") seems especially crucial for the evolutionary stability of cooperation and is the cornerstone of modern systems of criminal justice. In this commentary, we outline some potential cognitive and neural processes that may underlie the ability to learn norms, to follow norms and to enforce norms through third-party punishment. We propose that such processes depend on several domain-general cognitive functions that have been repurposed, through evolution's thrift, to perform these roles.

The effect of recommended role models in prisoner’s dilemma game

Previous studies concerning the prisoner’s dilemma game on graphs conventionally assume that individuals select role models from their replacement graphs at random. We propose a extended prisoner’s dilemma game model to study the impact of recommended role models on the evolution of cooperation in a homogeneous population. Individuals are endowed with the capacity to recommend the ones they imitated in the past to their neighbors for strategy updating. Numerical simulations show that cooperation can be improved significantly when recommendation is allowed. Our results might be helpful in explaining the widespread cooperation in the real world.