Cognitive appraisal before competition includes self-efficacy, traditionally defined as motivation and the perceived ability to perform well; presumably, both dimensions would affect the biological response to a contest. We aimed to analyze the role of self-efficacy in the psychobiological response to a competition in women. Forty university students were confronted in pairs on a laboratory com...

this study carried out in a factorial layout on completely randomaized block design with three replications, to evaluate the above- and below- ground competition between sesame (sesamum indicum) and pigweed (amaranthus retroflexus), and their impacts on sesame yield and yield component. the experimental treatments were all combination of crop-weed competition (shoot competition, root competitio...

Signals in our brain are in a constant state of competition, including those that vie for motor control, sensory dominance, and awareness. To shed light on the mechanisms underlying neural competition, we exploit binocular rivalry, a phenomenon that allows us to probe the competitive process that ordinarily transpires outside of our awareness. By measuring psychometric functions under different...

We propose a variation of the TAC SCM supply-chain trading competition, in which human decision-makers compete with fully-autonomous agents. Because of the complexity and time pressures of the competition environment, humans may be assisted by semi-autonomous agents, which could be modifications of existing agents. The research goal is to discover what kinds of decision support will make a huma...

Competition among scientists for funding, positions and prestige, among other things, is often seen as a salutary driving force in U.S. science. Its effects on scientists, their work and their relationships are seldom considered. Focus-group discussions with 51 mid- and early-career scientists, on which this study is based, reveal a dark side of competition in science. According to these scient...

Optimization of turning process is a non-linear optimization with constrains and it is difficult for the conventional optimization algorithms to solve this problem. The purpose of present study is to demonstrate the potential of Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA) for optimization of multipass turning process. This algorithm is inspired by competition mechanism among imperialists and coloni...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Competition drives self-thinning (density-dependent mortality) in crowded plant populations. Facilitative interactions have been shown to affect many processes in plant populations and communities, but their effects on self-thinning trajectories have not been investigated. METHODS Using an individual-based 'zone-of-influence' model, we studied the potential effects of the ...

Determining how adaptive evolution can be coupled to ecological processes is key for developing a more integrative understanding of the demographic factors that regulate populations. Intraspecific competition is an especially important ecological process because it generates negative density dependence in demographic rates. Although ecological factors are most often investigated to determine th...

Two studies examined differences in the cognition of golfers with differing levels of expertise in high and low pressure situations. In study 1, six high skill and six low skill golfers performed six holes of golf, while verbalizing their thoughts using Think Aloud (TA) protocol. Higher skilled golfers' cognitive processes centered more on planning in comparison to lower skilled golfers. Study ...

In this paper, we study an outsourced supply chain consisting of one buyer and two suppliers in which the buyer outsources manufacturing of a physical product to two competing suppliers. The suppliers compete for the buyers' demands share, and the buyer allocates the demands to the competing suppliers based on three-dimensional allocation functions. We consider two certain types of allocation f...