Citation

Chen YZ, Lai YC. Phys. Rev. E Stat. Nonlin. Soft Matter Phys. 2012; 86(4 Pt 2): 045101.

Affiliation

School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, American Physical Society, Publisher American Institute of Physics)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

23214636

Abstract

Cooperation has been recognized as a fundamental driving force in many natural, social, and economic systems. We investigate whether, given a complex-networked system in which agents (nodes) interact with one another according to the rules of evolutionary games and are subject to failure or death, cooperation can prevail and be optimized. We articulate a control scheme to maximize cooperation by introducing a time tolerance, a time duration that sustains an agent even if its payoff falls below a threshold. Strikingly, we find that a significant cooperation cluster can emerge when the time tolerance is approximately uniformly distributed over the network. A heuristic theory is derived to understand the optimization mechanism, which emphasizes the role played by medium-degree nodes. Implications for policy making to prevent or mitigate large-scale cascading breakdown are pointed out.

Language: en