Keys to success in an example of inter-competitor cooperation: The case of the "Big Seven" basque chefs

The case of the top chefs relates the two areas that are apparently most distant, nutrition and health technology. It is the element that binds[3] the four, making them into a single whole. The results achieved by our chefs, in terms of their individual and collective success and their international projection of the image of the Basque Country comprise a goal to which other industries in the region should aspire. It is therefore our plan to apply the keys to this successful inter-competitor cooperation to development of the health technology industry. At the same time, we want to fulfil one of the aims that have been established for the food area: to make use of the country’s gastronomy-related assets.

Evolution of Cooperation in the Snowdrift Game with Incomplete Information and Heterogeneous Population

Differently from previous studies of tag-based cooperation, we assume that individuals fail to recognize their own tag. Due to such incomplete information, the action taken against the opponent cannot be based on similarity, although it is still motivated by the tag displayed by the opponent. We present stability conditions for the case when individuals play unconditional cooperation, unconditional defection or conditional cooperation. We then consider the removal of one or two strategies. Results show that conditional cooperators are the most resilient agents against extinction and that the removal of unconditional cooperators may lead to the extinction of unconditional defectors.

Emergence of Cooperation in Heterogeneous Population: A Discrete-Time Replicator Dynamics Analysis

The emergence of cooperation is analyzed in heterogeneous populations where individuals can be classified in two groups according to their phenotypic appearance. Phenotype recognition is assumed for all individuals: individuals are able to identify the type of every other individual, but fail to recognize their own type, and thus behave under partial information conditions. The interactions between individuals are described by 2 × 2 symmetric games where individuals can either cooperate or defect. The evolution of such populations is studied in the framework of evolutionary game by means of the replicator dynamics. Overlapping generations are considered, so the replicator equations are formulated in discrete-time form. The well-posedness conditions of the system are derived. Depending on the parameters of the game, a restriction may exist for the generation length. The stability analysis of the dynamical system is carried out and a detailed description of the behavior of trajectories starting from the interior of the state-space is given. We find that, provided the conditions of well-posedness are verified, the linear stability of monomorphic states in the discrete-time replicator coincides with the one of the continuous case. Specific from the discrete-time case, a relaxed restriction for the generation length is derived, for which larger time-steps can be used without compromising the well-posedness of the replicator system.

We can work it out: an enactive look at cooperation

The past years have seen an increasing debate on cooperation and its unique human character. Philosophers and psychologists have proposed that cooperative activities are characterized by shared goals to which participants are committed through the ability to understand each other’s intentions. Despite its popularity, some serious issues arise with this approach to cooperation. First, one may challenge the assumption that high-level mental processes are necessary for engaging in acting cooperatively. If they are, then how do agents that do not possess such ability (preverbal children, or children with autism who are often claimed to be mind-blind) engage in cooperative exchanges, as the evidence suggests? Secondly, to define cooperation as the result of two de-contextualized minds reading each other’s intentions may fail to fully acknowledge the complexity of situated, interactional dynamics and the interplay of variables such as the participants’ relational and personal history and experience. In this paper we challenge such accounts of cooperation, calling for an embodied approach that sees cooperation not only as an individual attitude toward the other, but also as a property of interaction processes. Taking an enactive perspective, we argue that cooperation is an intrinsic part of any interaction, and that there can be cooperative interaction before complex communicative abilities are achieved. The issue then is not whether one is able or not to read the other’s intentions, but what it takes to participate in joint action. From this basic account, it should be possible to build up more complex forms of cooperation as needed. Addressing the study of cooperation in these terms may enhance our understanding of human social development, and foster our knowledge of different ways of engaging with others, as in the case of autism.