Moralistic Gods and Social Complexity: A Brief History of the Problem

A cluster of persistent and contentious questions in the scientific study of religion concern when and why so-called “moralistic traditions” developed and how they have shaped human relationships. Is there an association between moralistic gods and the size and/or complexity of the society that might worship them? How cross-culturally ubiquitous are such traditions? Are people more willing to engage in cooperative behavior when they believe their god cares about morality? This chapter focuses on how these questions have arisen and how generations of researchers have struggled to address them. We first briefly examine the intellectual history of the problem, pointing to some of the troubling aspects of early observations of traditional societies and subsequent anthropological positions. We then address how early observations of small-scale peoples have populated cross-cultural resources that have informed and driven contemporary empirical projects. We finish by pointing to ways in which we might go about ensuring that the conversation continues with clarity and consistency.

Research on Cooperative Behavior of Green Technology Innovation in Construction Enterprises Based on Evolutionary Game

The dynamic evolution game model is built by using evolutionary game theory, and the evolutionarily stable strategy is analyzed by matlab2018b software in this paper. The cooperation willingness, sharing level, income distribution, and punishment mechanism are comprehensively considered in this model, and numerical simulations of the influence of various influencing factors on the cooperation strategy selection of green technology innovation for construction enterprises are carried out. Then, countermeasures and suggestions are put forward. The results of evolutionary game analysis show that the cooperation willingness, sharing level, income distribution, and punishment mechanism have a significant impact on the cooperative evolution direction of green technology innovation for construction enterprises, separately. Stronger cooperation willingness or higher relative value of positive spillover, or reasonable income distribution can promote partners to adopt active cooperative strategies, while appropriately increasing punishment intensity can prevent opportunistic behaviors and improve the probability of success of cooperative innovation.

The Effect of Perceived Uncertainty on Competitive Behavior

How do people behave in the face of uncertainty? Some studies suggest that even when they are unaware of how others will behave, people default to cooperative behavior; however, other research suggests that uncertainty leads to more competitive behavior. Little research has examined how individual differences moderate such behavioral decisions. This study proposes that a stable (dispositional) sense of justice may, ironically, lead to more competitive behavior. Specifically, people who score highly in belief in a just world, system justification, and religiosity, and low in ambiguity tolerance may be more inclined to compete rather than cooperate because they believe people who experience positive outcomes deserve those outcomes regardless of the means taken to achieve them. Across two studies, participants (N = 288) engaged in a prisoner’s dilemma game — a task where they must choose to compete or cooperate — and completed the aforementioned individual difference measures. Results show that people tended to cooperate, but those high in system justification and belief in a just world were more likely to compete. In other words, people with a strong sense of cosmic justice were likely to exhibit competitive behavior under uncertain conditions. KEYWORDS: Ambiguity Tolerance; Competition; Cooperation; Just World Beliefs; Prisoner’s Dilemma; Prosocial Behavior; Religiosity; System Justification; Uncertainty

SEARCH FOR WAYS OF CONTROLLED MODIFICATION OF CHARACTERISTICS OF FUNCTIONAL UNITS OF ADAPTIVE AIR PURIFICATION SYSTEMS

Information on alkaline coordination nitrates of rare-earth elements of the cerium subgroup - precursors of promising modern multifunctional materials - on the conditions of their formation and existence, the nature of the chemical bond, the composition, structure, shape of the Ln coordination polyhedra, the type of ligand coordination, and the existence of isotypic series in stoichiometry are generalized. composition, structure, characteristic properties. The data obtained (as primary information) is the basis for the detection, identification, and control of the phase state of processing objects in the preparatory stages, the choice of criteria for the compatibility of the components in the formation of single-layer and layered nanostructured oxide composite systems of lanthanides and transition elements for general purposes, with catalytic and photocatalytic activity, coatings self-cleaning with hydrophilic properties; development of various combined methods for their activation and identification of technological functional dependencies; controlled modification of the properties of the obtained target products. To increase the photocatalytic activity of coating samples based on highly dispersed anatase TiO2, a methodology for chemical modification of oxidation centers in their surface layer with heat treatment in contact with thermolysis products of alkaline coordination lanthanide nitrate melts is proposed. An effective test photocatalytic destruction of organic substrates vapors has been discovered using ethanol as an example.Effective activation of the functioning of functional units in the composition of self-adjusting air purification complexes using new photocatalytically active three-layer perovskite-like oxide materials M2Ln2Ti3O10 (M - Li, Na, K; Ln - La, Nd) has been proven. The variability of such methods for creating and modifying the characteristics of polyfunctional coatings is determined by the number and individual properties of representatives of the natural series of lanthanides, alkali metals of the periodic system, the peculiarities of their cooperative behavior in the preparatory technological stages, conditions and methods of activation of formation processes, the nature of the substrate, and other factors.

Interpersonal brain synchronization during face-to-face economic exchange between acquainted dyads

Interpersonal brain synchronization (IBS) has been observed during social interactions and involves various factors, such as familiarity with the partner and type of social activity. A previous study has shown that face-to-face interactions in pairs of strangers increase IBS. However, it is unclear whether this can be observed when the nature of the interacting partners is different. Herein, we aimed to extend these findings to pairs of acquaintances. Neural activity in the frontal and temporal regions was recorded using functional near-infrared spectroscopy hyperscanning. Participants played an ultimatum game that required virtual economic exchange in two experimental settings: the face-to-face and face-blocked conditions. Random pair analysis confirmed whether IBS was induced by social interaction. Contrary to the aforementioned study, our results did not show any cooperative behavior or task-induced IBS increase. Conversely, the random pair analysis results revealed that the pair-specific IBS was significant only in the task condition at the left and right superior frontal, middle frontal, orbital superior frontal, right superior temporal, precentral, and postcentral gyri. Our results revealed that face-to-face interaction in acquainted pairs did not increase IBS and supported the idea that IBS is affected by "with whom we interact and how."

From Contractual Flexibility to Contractor’s Cooperative Behavior in Construction Projects: The Multiple Mediation Effects of Ongoing Trust and Justice Perception

The flexible contract is an important mechanism for owners to govern contractors in construction projects. Given the limited explanatory power of the justice mechanism and the important role of relational factors, this study explored the role of ongoing trust and justice perception in the relationship between contractual flexibility and the contractor’s cooperative behavior and aimed to further reveal the potential influence paths through an empirical analysis. We found the following: (1) apart from justice perception, ongoing trust is another crucial mediation factor in the relationship. (2) Together with the former, ongoing trust plays significantly multiple mediation effects and constitutes the main indirect influence paths, among which the parallel one is strongest and the chain one comes third. (3) Moreover, both factors are more likely to be impacted by contract executing flexibility, compared with contract content flexibility. These findings enrich relational mechanism research and provide some guidance for the owner to build contractual flexibility to govern contractors’ behavior.

Will Increasing Government Subsidies Promote Open Innovation? A Simulation Analysis of China’s Wind Power Industry

Keeping open innovation both stable and sustainable can be difficult when it involves cooperation between large enterprises. Some empirical studies suggest that subsidy policies can play a positive role. This study addresses two key questions that follow from this observation: first, if the intensity of a subsidy policy is increased, can it play a greater role in strengthening the stability of cooperation between firms? Second, what other factors play a mediating role in this effect? Utilizing a dynamic game model, this paper analyses influential factors such as absorptive capacity, frequency of engagement and technical value on cooperative stability, and investigates the role of innovation policy in the process of cooperation through a random number-driven simulation. The findings indicate that only when the absorption capacity and technological value of both partners meet a certain threshold is the probability of positive cooperative behavior improved. Otherwise, increased subsidies tend to foster negative cooperative behavior instead.

Probabilistic Model Checking and Autonomy

The design and control of autonomous systems that operate in uncertain or adversarial environments can be facilitated by formal modeling and analysis. Probabilistic model checking is a technique to automatically verify, for a given temporal logic specification, that a system model satisfies the specification, as well as to synthesize an optimal strategy for its control. This method has recently been extended to multiagent systems that exhibit competitive or cooperative behavior modeled via stochastic games and synthesis of equilibria strategies. In this article, we provide an overview of probabilistic model checking, focusing on models supported by the PRISM and PRISM-games model checkers. This overview includes fully observable and partially observable Markov decision processes, as well as turn-based and concurrent stochastic games, together with associated probabilistic temporal logics. We demonstrate the applicability of the framework through illustrative examples from autonomous systems. Finally, we highlight research challenges and suggest directions for future work in this area. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Control, Robotics, and Autonomous Systems, Volume 5 is May 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Blood Coagulation Algorithm: A Novel Bio-Inspired Meta-Heuristic Algorithm for Global Optimization

This paper introduces a novel population-based bio-inspired meta-heuristic optimization algorithm, called Blood Coagulation Algorithm (BCA). BCA derives inspiration from the process of blood coagulation in the human body. The underlying concepts and ideas behind the proposed algorithm are the cooperative behavior of thrombocytes and their intelligent strategy of clot formation. These behaviors are modeled and utilized to underscore intensification and diversification in a given search space. A comparison with various state-of-the-art meta-heuristic algorithms over a test suite of 23 renowned benchmark functions reflects the efficiency of BCA. An extensive investigation is conducted to analyze the performance, convergence behavior and computational complexity of BCA. The comparative study and statistical test analysis demonstrate that BCA offers very competitive and statistically significant results compared to other eminent meta-heuristic algorithms. Experimental results also show the consistent performance of BCA in high dimensional search spaces. Furthermore, we demonstrate the applicability of BCA on real-world applications by solving several real-life engineering problems.