scholarly journals The PING Project: Using Ecological Momentary Assessments to Better Understand When and How Woodland Owner Group Members Engage with Their Woodlands

Forests ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 944
Author(s):  
Emily S. Huff ◽  
David B. Kittredge
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Real Time ◽  
The United States ◽  
Forest Owner ◽  
Family Forest ◽  
The Public ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Ecological Momentary Assessments ◽  
Ecological Momentary

Research Highlights: Ecological momentary assessments (EMAs) are a fresh approach to measuring behavior by querying the subject in real time. Typical studies of FFO behavior use self-reported survey data. FFOs across the United States collectively own more forested land than any other ownership category, and their actions will impact the public goods these forests provide. Thus, better measures of FFO actions are critical to understanding how these public goods may be affected. Background and Objectives: In this pilot study, we evaluated the potential of ecological momentary assessments to understand family forest owner (FFO) engagement with their woods. We sought to test recruitment, attrition, and participant reaction to the method. Materials and Methods: FFOs belong to woodland owner associations were sent the same questions weekly for a month, asking about woodland engagement. Results: Nearly 90% of participants completed all four surveys and the majority found the method reasonable. Most participants thought about their woods weekly, but a longer time period is needed to measure temporal management trends. Conclusions: This approach may yield real-time and useful information about natural resource engagement to inform conservation-based programming and outreach.

scholarly journals Cooperation and competition between pair and multi-player social games in spatial populations

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Attila Szolnoki ◽  
Xiaojie Chen
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Evolutionary Game Theory ◽  
Evolutionary Game ◽  
Pair Interaction ◽  
Public Goods Game ◽  
Point Interactions ◽  
Social Games ◽  
The Public ◽  
Specific Parameter ◽  
Group Members

AbstractThe conflict between individual and collective interests is in the heart of every social dilemmas established by evolutionary game theory. We cannot avoid these conflicts but sometimes we may choose which interaction framework to use as a battlefield. For instance some people like to be part of a larger group while other persons prefer to interact in a more personalized, individual way. Both attitudes can be formulated via appropriately chosen traditional games. In particular, the prisoner’s dilemma game is based on pair interaction while the public goods game represents multi-point interactions of group members. To reveal the possible advantage of a certain attitude we extend these models by allowing players not simply to change their strategies but also let them to vary their attitudes for a higher individual income. We show that both attitudes could be the winner at a specific parameter value. Interestingly, however, the subtle interplay between different states may result in a counterintuitive evolutionary outcome where the increase of the multiplication factor of public goods game drives the population to a fully defector state. We point out that the accompanying pattern formation can only be understood via the multipoint or multi-player interactions of different microscopic states where the vicinity of a particular state may influence the relation of two other competitors.

scholarly journals Is COVID-19 the end of US hegemony? Public bads, leadership failures and monetary hegemony

2020 ◽  
Vol 96 (5) ◽  
pp. 1281-1303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carla Norrlöf
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Health ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Hegemony ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
Public Bads ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract COVID-19 is the most invasive global crisis in the postwar era, jeopardizing all dimensions of human activity. By theorizing COVID-19 as a public bad, I shed light on one of the great debates of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries regarding the relationship between the United States and liberal international order (LIO). Conceptualizing the pandemic as a public bad, I analyze its consequences for US hegemony. Unlike other international public bads and many of the most important public goods that make up the LIO, the COVID-19 public bad not only has some degree of rivalry but can be made partially excludable, transforming it into more of a club good. Domestically, I demonstrate how the failure to effectively manage the COVID-19 public bad has compromised America's ability to secure the health of its citizens and the domestic economy, the very foundations for its international leadership. These failures jeopardize US provision of other global public goods. Internationally, I show how the US has already used the crisis strategically to reinforce its opposition to free international movement while abandoning the primary international institution tasked with fighting the public bad, the World Health Organization (WHO). While the only area where the United States has exercised leadership is in the monetary sphere, I argue this feat is more consequential for maintaining hegemony. However, even monetary hegemony could be at risk if the pandemic continues to be mismanaged.

scholarly journals Traffic, Drugs, Mental Health, and Disinfectants: Changes in Sewage Sludge Chemical Signatures During a COVID-19 Community Lockdown

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Nason ◽  
Elizabeth Lin ◽  
Brian D. Eitzer ◽  
Jeremy P. Koelmel ◽  
Jordan Peccia
Keyword(s):  
Sewage Sludge ◽  
High Resolution Mass Spectrometry ◽  
Treatment Plant ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
Chemical Signatures ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Screening Strategies ◽  
Antidepressant Use ◽  
At Home

<p>The COVID-19 pandemic and related shutdowns have caused changes in everyday activities for many people, and signs of those changes are present in the chemical signatures of sewage sludge produced during the pandemic. We analyzed primary sewage sludge samples from a wastewater treatment plant in New Haven, CT USA collected between March 19 and June 30, 2020. This time period encompassed the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the initial statewide stay at home order, and the first phase of reopening. We used liquid chromatography coupled with high resolution mass spectrometry and targeted and suspect screening strategies to identify contaminants in the sludge. We and found evidence of increasing opioid, cocaine, and antidepressant use, as well as upward trends in chemicals used in disinfectants and sunscreens during the study period. Benzotriazole, an anti-corrosion chemical associated with traffic pollution, decreased through the stay-at-home period, and increased during reopening. Hydroxychloroquine, a drug that received significant attention for its potential to treat COVID-19, had elevated concentrations in the week following the implementation of the United States Emergency Use Authorization. Our results directly relate to nationwide reports of increased demand for fentanyl, antidepressants, and other medications, as well as reports of increased drug overdose deaths during the pandemic. Though wastewater surveillance during the pandemic has largely focused on measuring SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentrations, chemical analysis can also show trends that are important for revealing the public and environmental health effects of the pandemic. </p>

scholarly journals Traffic, Drugs, Mental Health, and Disinfectants: Changes in Sewage Sludge Chemical Signatures During a COVID-19 Community Lockdown

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Nason ◽  
Elizabeth Lin ◽  
Brian D. Eitzer ◽  
Jeremy P. Koelmel ◽  
Jordan Peccia
Keyword(s):  
Sewage Sludge ◽  
High Resolution Mass Spectrometry ◽  
Treatment Plant ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
Chemical Signatures ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Screening Strategies ◽  
Antidepressant Use ◽  
At Home

<p>The COVID-19 pandemic and related shutdowns have caused changes in everyday activities for many people, and signs of those changes are present in the chemical signatures of sewage sludge produced during the pandemic. We analyzed primary sewage sludge samples from a wastewater treatment plant in New Haven, CT USA collected between March 19 and June 30, 2020. This time period encompassed the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the initial statewide stay at home order, and the first phase of reopening. We used liquid chromatography coupled with high resolution mass spectrometry and targeted and suspect screening strategies to identify contaminants in the sludge. We and found evidence of increasing opioid, cocaine, and antidepressant use, as well as upward trends in chemicals used in disinfectants and sunscreens during the study period. Benzotriazole, an anti-corrosion chemical associated with traffic pollution, decreased through the stay-at-home period, and increased during reopening. Hydroxychloroquine, a drug that received significant attention for its potential to treat COVID-19, had elevated concentrations in the week following the implementation of the United States Emergency Use Authorization. Our results directly relate to nationwide reports of increased demand for fentanyl, antidepressants, and other medications, as well as reports of increased drug overdose deaths during the pandemic. Though wastewater surveillance during the pandemic has largely focused on measuring SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentrations, chemical analysis can also show trends that are important for revealing the public and environmental health effects of the pandemic. </p>

THE COEVOLUTION OF GROUP SIZE AND LEADERSHIP: AN AGENT-BASED PUBLIC GOODS MODEL FOR PREHISPANIC PUEBLO SOCIETIES

2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (01n02) ◽  
pp. 1150007 ◽  
Author(s):  
TIMOTHY A. KOHLER ◽  
DENTON COCKBURN ◽  
PAUL L. HOOPER ◽  
R. KYLE BOCINSKY ◽  
ZIAD KOBTI
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Goodness Of Fit ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Public Goods Game ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
The Public ◽  
Group Competition ◽  
Monitoring Group ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Pueblo Societies

We present an agent-based model for voluntaristic processes allowing the emergence of leadership in small-scale societies, parameterized to apply to Pueblo societies of the northern US Southwest between AD 600 and 1300. We embed an evolutionary public-goods game in a spatial simulation of household activities in which agents, representing households, decide where to farm, hunt, and locate their residences. Leaders, through their work in monitoring group members and punishing defectors, can increase the likelihood that group members will cooperate to achieve a favorable outcome in the public-goods game. We show that under certain conditions households prefer to work in a group with a leader who receives a share of the group's productivity, rather than to work in a group with no leader. Simulation produces outcomes that match reasonably well those known for a portion of Southwest Colorado between AD 600 and 900. We suggest that for later periods a model incorporating coercion, or inter-group competition, or both, and one in which tiered hierarchies of leadership can emerge, would increase the goodness-of-fit.

Gulliver’s Politics

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 670-678 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Holbrook ◽  
Lucía López-Rodríguez ◽  
Daniel M. T. Fessler ◽  
Alexandra Vázquez ◽  
Ángel Gómez
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Self ◽  
Intergroup Conflict ◽  
Syrian Refugees ◽  
Physical Size ◽  
The Public ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Group Target

Political conservatives have been widely documented to regard out-group members as hostile, perceive individuals of ambiguous intent as malevolent, and favor aggressive solutions to intergroup conflict. A growing literature indicates that potential violent adversaries are represented using the dimensions of envisioned physical size/strength to summarize opponents’ fighting capacities relative to the self or in-group. Integrating these programs, we hypothesized that, compared to liberals, conservatives would envision an ambiguous out-group target as more likely to pose a threat, yet as vanquishable through force, and thus as less formidable. Participants from the United States (Study 1) and Spain (Study 2) assessed Syrian refugees, a group that the public widely suspects includes terrorists. As predicted, in both societies, conservatives envisioned refugees as more likely to be terrorists and as less physically formidable. As hypothesized, this “Gulliver effect” was mediated by confidence in each society’s capacity to thwart terrorism via aggressive military or police measures.

scholarly journals Northeastern Family Forest Owner Gender Differences in Land-Based Estate Planning and the Role of Self-Efficacy

2019 ◽  
Vol 118 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marla Markowski-Lindsay ◽  
Paul Catanzaro ◽  
Rebekah Zimmerer ◽  
David Kittredge ◽  
Ezra Markowitz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Gender Differences ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Self Efficacy ◽  
Forest Owner ◽  
Northeastern United States ◽  
Estate Planning ◽  
Family Forest ◽  
The Future

Abstract Understanding family forest owner (FFO) estate planning decisionmaking is fundamental to ensuring the survival of landscapes that provide many public goods, but little is known about how land-based estate planning differs by gender. Analyses of a survey of FFOs in northeastern United States indicated that female FFOs rate themselves with lower levels of land-based estate planning self-efficacy—being less prepared, confident, and financially able to move forward with planning the future of their land than males. Of the FFOs who had positive levels of land-based estate planning self-efficacy, females were more likely to want to keep their land undeveloped than males. Our research suggests that increasing land-based estate planning self-efficacy of female FFOs may lead to higher rates of keeping land undeveloped for regions with FFOs similar to those of the northeast. We recommend ways in which foresters and programs could play an important role in increasing land-based estate planning self-efficacy.

scholarly journals Studying Public Perception about Vaccination: A Sentiment Analysis of Tweets

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (10) ◽  
pp. 3464 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viju Raghupathi ◽  
Jie Ren ◽  
Wullianallur Raghupathi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Sentiment Analysis ◽  
Public Perception ◽  
Ebola Virus ◽  
Herd Immunity ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Document Frequency ◽  
Measles Outbreak

Text analysis has been used by scholars to research attitudes toward vaccination and is particularly timely due to the rise of medical misinformation via social media. This study uses a sample of 9581 vaccine-related tweets in the period 1 January 2019 to 5 April 2019. The time period is of the essence because during this time, a measles outbreak was prevalent throughout the United States and a public debate was raging. Sentiment analysis is applied to the sample, clustering the data into topics using the term frequency–inverse document frequency (TF-IDF) technique. The analyses suggest that most (about 77%) of the tweets focused on the search for new/better vaccines for diseases such as the Ebola virus, human papillomavirus (HPV), and the flu. Of the remainder, about half concerned the recent measles outbreak in the United States, and about half were part of ongoing debates between supporters and opponents of vaccination against measles in particular. While these numbers currently suggest a relatively small role for vaccine misinformation, the concept of herd immunity puts that role in context. Nevertheless, going forward, health experts should consider the potential for the increasing spread of falsehoods that may get firmly entrenched in the public mind.

scholarly journals Common Knowledge Promotes Cooperation in the Threshold Public Goods Game by Reducing Uncertainty

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Deutchman ◽  
Dorsa Amir ◽  
Katherine McAuliffe ◽  
Matthew Jordan
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Cooperative Behavior ◽  
Common Knowledge ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Public Goods Game ◽  
The Public ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Threshold Public Goods

Recent work suggests that an important cognitive mechanism promoting coordination is common knowledge—a heuristic for representing recursive mental states. Yet, we know little about how common knowledge promotes coordination. We propose that common knowledge increases coordination by reducing uncertainty about others’ cooperative behavior. We examine how common knowledge increases cooperation in the context of a threshold public goods game, a public good game in which a minimum level of contribution—a threshold—is required. Across two preregistered studies (N = 4,111), we explored how varying (1) the information participants had regarding what their group members knew about the threshold and (2) the threshold level affected contributions. We found that participants were more likely to contribute to the public good when there was common knowledge of the threshold than private knowledge. Using structural equation modeling, we found that the predicted number of group members contributing to the public good and certainty about the predicted number of contributors mediated the effect of information condition on contributions. Our results suggest that common knowledge of the threshold increases public good contributions by reducing uncertainty around other people’s cooperative behavior. These findings point to the influential role of common knowledge in helping to solve large-scale cooperation problems.

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