arXiv subjects

Sinan Feng

Publications and source records attributed to Sinan Feng.

2 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Punishment in bipartite societies

From ant-acacia mutualism to performative conflict resolution among Inuit, dedicated punishments between distinct subsets of a population are widespread and can reshape the evolutionary trajectory of cooperation. Existing studies have focused on punishments within a homogeneous population, paying little attention to cooperative dynamics in a situation where belonging to a subset is equally important to the actual strategy represented by an actor. To fill this gap, we here study a bipartite population where cooperator agents in a public goods game penalize exclusively those defectors who belong to the alternative subset. We find that cooperation can emerge and remain stable under symmetric intergroup punishment. In particular, at low punishment intensity and at a small value of the enhancement factor of the dilemma game, intergroup punishment promotes cooperation more effectively than a uniformly applied punishment. Moreover, intergroup punishment in bipartite populations tends to be more favorable for overall social welfare. When this incentive is balanced, cooperators can collectively restrain defectors of the alternative set via aggregate interactions in a randomly formed working group, offering a more effective incentive. Conversely, breaking the symmetry of intergroup punishment inhibits cooperation, as the imbalance creates an Achilles' heel in the enforcement structure. Our work, thus, reveals symmetry in intergroup punishment as a unifying principle behind cooperation across human and biological systems.

q-bio.PE↗

arXiv2026

Post-Disaster Resource Redistribution and Cooperation Evolution Based on Two-Layer Network Evolutionary Games

In the aftermath of large-scale disasters, the scarcity of resources and the paralysis of infrastructure raise severe challenges to effective post-disaster recovery. Efficient coordination between shelters and victims plays a crucial role in building community resilience, yet the evolution of two-layer behavioral feedback between these two groups through network coupling remains insufficiently understood. Here, this study develops a two-layer network to capture the cross-layer coupling between shelters and victims. The upper layer uses a post-disaster emergency resource redistribution model within the framework of the public goods game, while the lower layer adopts a cooperative evolutionary game to describe internal victim interactions. Monte Carlo simulations on scale-free networks reveal threshold effects of incentives: moderate public goods enhancement and subsidies promote cooperation, whereas excessive incentives induce free-riding. In contrast, credible and well-executed punishment effectively suppresses defection. Targeted punishment of highly connected shelters significantly enhances cooperation under resource constraints. A comparative analysis using a network generated from the actual coordinates of Beijing shelters confirms the model's generality and practical applicability. The findings highlight the importance of calibrated incentives, enforceable sanctions, and structural targeting in fostering robust cooperation across organizational and individual levels in post-disaster environments.

physics.soc-ph↗