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This paper aims to examine the influence of authors’ reputation on editorial bias in scholarly journals. By looking at eight years of editorial decisions in four computer science journals, including 7179 observations on 2913 submissions, we reconstructed author/referee-submission networks. For each submission, we looked at reviewer scores and estimated the reputation of submission authors by means of their network degree. By training a Bayesian network, we estimated the potential effect of scientist reputation on editorial decisions. Results showed that more reputed authors were less likely to be rejected by editors when they submitted papers receiving negative reviews. Although these four journals were comparable for scope and areas, we found certain journal specificities in their editorial process. Our findings suggest ways to examine the editorial process in relatively similar journals without recurring to in-depth individual data, which are rarely available from scholarly journals.

A appropriate bottom-up rule system can support the sustainability of common-pool resources such as forests and fisheries. The process that leads to the developments of such institutional settings requires the considerations of multiple social, physical, and institutional factors over long time horizons. In this paper, we present the SONICOM model as a general exploratory model of CPR systems. The model can be configured to represent different CPR systems in order to explore what kind of institutional settings result in stable systems, i.e. situations where the resource and the appropriators are in a state of well-being. We use a large-N-dataset of CPR management institutions to validate the model. The results show numerous correlations between various parameters of the system such as rule compliance, social influence and resource growth rate which help explaining the process of institutional emergence as well as unveiling the conditions under which systems are stable.

Due to negative consequences of climate change for agriculture and food production shocks affecting different areas of the world, the past two decades saw the conditions of global food security increasingly worsen. This has resulted in negative consequences for the world economy, partly causing international food price spikes and social upheavals. In this paper we present statistical findings along with a preliminary version of an original agent-based model called the Dawe Global Security Model that simulates the global food market and the political fragility of countries. The model simulates the effects of food insecurity on international food prices and how these, coupled with national political fragility and international food trade can, in turn, increase the probability of food riots in countries. The agents in the model are the 213 countries of the world whose characteristics reflect empirical data and the international trade of food is also simulated based on real trade partnerships and data. The model has been informed, calibrated and validated using real data and the results of these procedures are presented in the paper. To further test the model we also present the model’s forecasts for the near future in terms of food prices and incidence of food riots. The Dawe Global Security Model can be used to test scenarios on the evolution of shocks to global food production and analyse consequences for food riots. Further developments of the model can include national responses to food crises to investigate how countries can influence the spread of global food crises.

Peer review is the defining feature of scholarly communication. In a 2018 survey of more than 11, 000 researchers, 98% said that they considered peer review important or extremely important for ensuring the quality and integrity of scholarly communication.

How to feed the world is a vigorously debated question, but the extent to which possible solutions receive attention in the scientific literature has not been studied. Using textual analysis, we analyse 12,640 research articles to quantify how this discourse evolved over the last 50 years, distinguishing between a focus on three potential levers: total food production, per capita food demand, and population. We find a strong and increasing focus on feeding the world through increasing food production via technology, while the focus on reducing food demand through less intensive dietary patterns has remained constant and low. Population has declined from being the dominant lever discussed in 1969 to the least researched in 2018. Our results suggest that very few studies address all three levers in an integrated way, which may be constraining the solution space for feeding the world and meeting other Sustainable Development Goals.

The impact of resources on social unrest is of increasing interest to political leaders, business and civil society. Recent events have highlighted that (lack of) access to critical resources, including food, energy and water, can, in certain circumstances, lead to violent demonstrations. In this paper, we assess a number of political fragility indices to see whether they are good indicators of propensity to food riots. We found that the most accurate is the Political Instability and Absence of Violence Indicator of the Worldwide Governance Indicators by the World Bank. We compute a likelihood of experiencing a food riot for each quartile of this index. We found that the self-sufficiency of food does not seem to affect the likelihood of the occurrence of food riots, but that the level of political stability of a country does have a role. In addition, we identify a monthly and annual threshold for the Food and Agriculture Organisation Food Price Index, above which food riots in fragile states are more likely to occur.

The aim of this study was to investigate the opinion of authors on the overall quality and effectiveness of reviewers&rsquo, contributions to reviewed papers. We employed an on-line survey of thirteen journals which publish articles in the field of life, social or technological sciences. Responses received from 193 authors were analysed using a mixed-effects model in order to determine factors deemed the most important in the authors&rsquo, evaluation of the reviewers. Qualitative content analysis of the responses to open questions was performed as well. The mixed-effects model revealed that the authors&rsquo, assessment of the competence of referees strongly depended on the final editorial decision and that the speed of the review process was influential as well. In Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) analysis on seven questions detailing authors&rsquo, opinions, perception of review speed remained a significant predictor of the assessment. In addition, both the perceived competence and helpfulness of the reviewers significantly and positively affected the authors&rsquo, evaluation. New models were used to re-check the value of these two factors and it was confirmed that the assessment of the competence of reviewers strongly depended on the final editorial decision.

The Human Sustainable Development Index (HSDI) has been proposed as a way to amend the United Nations’ Human Development Index (HDI) by adding an environmental dimension. Despite some attention in the media, the HSDI remained largely ignored by the scientific community. This paper aims at overcoming this issue by presenting an updated version of the index, based on recently available UN data, including a complete description of the procedure leading to its calculation and a critical assessment of its relation with some established environmental indicators. We found that, while the HSDI represents a step ahead from the HDI, it remains insufficient in its representation of environmental sustainability. A better equilibrium between social, economic and environmental goals is needed to reach a true index of sustainable development.

"The transport sector needs to go through an extended process of decarbonisation to counter the threat of climate change. Unfortunately, the International Energy Agency forecasts an enormous growth in the number of cars and greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Two issues can thus be identified: (1) the need for a new methodology that could evaluate the policy performances ex-ante and (2) the need for more effective policies. To help address these issues, we developed an Agent-Based Model called Mobility USA aimed at: (1) testing whether this could be an effective approach in analysing ex-ante policy implementation in the transport sector; and (2) evaluating the effects of alternative policy scenarios on commuting behaviours in the USA. Particularly, we tested the effects of two sets of policies, namely market-based and preference-change ones. The model results suggest that this type of agent-based approach will provide a useful tool for testing policy interventions and their effectiveness."

"In this paper we present an abstract replication of institutional emergence patterns observed in common pool resource (CPR) problems. We used the ADICO grammar of institutions as the basic structure to model both agents’ strategies and institutions. Through an evolutionary process, agents modify their behaviours and eventually establish a management institution for their CPR system, leading to significant benefits both for them and for the commons as a whole. We showed that, even if our model has a high level of abstraction, by taking an evolutionary perspective and using the ADICO structure we are able to observe common institutional patterns. We confirmed that, even within this simplified environment, institutions significantly contributed to the sustainable management of common-pool resource systems. "

Gender differences in cooperative choices and their neural correlates were investigated in a situation where reputation represented a crucial issue. Males and females were involved in an economic exchange (trust game) where economic and reputational payoffs had to be balanced in order to increase personal welfare. At the behavioral level, females showed a stronger reaction to negative reputation judgments that led to higher cooperation than males, measured by back transfers in the game. The neuroanatomical counterpart of this gender difference was found within the reward network (engaged in producing expectations of positive results) and reputation-related brain networks, such as the self-control network (engaged in strategically resisting the temptation to defect) and the mentalizing network (engaged in thinking about how one is viewed by others), in which the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the medial (M)PFC respectively play a crucial role. Furthermore, both DLPFC and MPFC activity correlated with the amount of back transfer, as well as with the personality dimensions assessed with the Big-Five Questionnaire (BFQ-2). Males, according to their greater DLPFC recruitment and their higher level of the BFQ-2 subscale of Dominance, were more focused on implementing a profit-maximizing strategy, pursuing this target irrespectively of others' judgments. On the contrary, females, according to their greater MPFC activity and their lower level of Dominance, were more focused on the reputation per se and not on the strategic component of reputation building. These findings shed light on the sexual dimorphism related to cooperative behavior and its neural correlates.

Although peer review is crucial for innovation and experimental discoveries in science, it is poorly understood in scientific terms. Discovering its true dynamics and exploring adjustments which improve the commitment of everyone involved could benefit scientific development for all disciplines and consequently increase innovation in the economy and the society. We have reported the results of an innovative experiment developed to model peer review. We demonstrate that offering material rewards to referees tends to decrease the quality and efficiency of the reviewing process. Our findings help to discuss the viability of different options of incentive provision, supporting the idea that journal editors and responsible of research funding agencies should be extremely careful in offering material incentives on reviewing, since these might undermine moral motives which guide referees’ behavior.