Blockchain-Assisted Unsupervised Learning Method for Crowdsourcing Reputation Management

Crowdsourcing holds broad applications in information acquisition and dissemination,yet encounters challenges pertaining to data quality assessment and user reputation management.Reputation mechanisms stand as crucial solutions for appraising and updating participant reputation scores,thereby elevating the quality and dependability of crowdsourced data.However,these mechanisms face several challenges in traditional crowdsourcing systems:1)platform security lacks robust guarantees and may be susceptible to attacks;2)there exists a potential for large-scale privacy breaches;and 3)incentive mechanisms relying on reputation scores may encounter issues as reputation updates hinge on task demander evaluations,occasionally lacking a dedicated reputation update module.This paper introduces a reputation update scheme tailored for crowdsourcing,with a focus on proficiently overseeing participant reputations and alleviating the impact of malicious activities on the sensing system.Here,the reputation update scheme is determined by an Empirical Cumulative distribution-based Outlier Detection method(ECOD).Our scheme embraces a blockchain-based crowdsourcing framework utilizing a homomorphic encryption method to ensure data transparency and tamper-resistance.Computation of user reputation scores relies on their behavioral history,actively discouraging undesirable conduct.Additionally,we introduce a dynamic weight incentive mechanism that mirrors alterations in participant reputation,enabling the system to allocate incentives based on user behavior and reputation.Our scheme undergoes evaluation on 11 datasets,revealing substantial enhancements in data credibility for crowdsourcing systems and a reduction in the influence of malicious behavior.This research not only presents a practical solution for crowdsourcing reputation management but also offers valuable insights for future research and applications,holding promise for fostering more reliable and high-quality data collection in crowdsourcing across diverse domains.

On Designs of Decentralized Reputation Management for Permissioned Blockchain Networks

In permissioned blockchain networks,the Proof of Authority(PoA)consensus,which uses the election of authorized nodes to validate transactions and blocks,has beenwidely advocated thanks to its high transaction throughput and fault tolerance.However,PoA suffers from the drawback of centralization dominated by a limited number of authorized nodes and the lack of anonymity due to the round-robin block proposal mechanism.As a result,traditional PoA is vulnerable to a single point of failure that compromises the security of the blockchain network.To address these issues,we propose a novel decentralized reputation management mechanism for permissioned blockchain networks to enhance security,promote liveness,and mitigate centralization while retaining the same throughput as traditional PoA.This paper aims to design an off-chain reputation evaluation and an on-chain reputation-aided consensus.First,we evaluate the nodes’reputation in the context of the blockchain networks and make the reputation globally verifiable through smart contracts.Second,building upon traditional PoA,we propose a reputation-aided PoA(rPoA)consensus to enhance securitywithout sacrificing throughput.In particular,rPoA can incentivize nodes to autonomously form committees based on reputation authority,which prevents block generation from being tracked through the randomness of reputation variation.Moreover,we develop a reputation-aided fork-choice rule for rPoA to promote the network’s liveness.Finally,experimental results show that the proposed rPoA achieves higher security performance while retaining transaction throughput compared to traditional PoA.

A Reputation-Based AODV Protocol for Blackhole and Malfunction Nodes Detection and Avoidance

Enhancing the security of Wireless Sensor Networks(WSNs)improves the usability of their applications.Therefore,finding solutions to various attacks,such as the blackhole attack,is crucial for the success of WSN applications.This paper proposes an enhanced version of the AODV(Ad Hoc On-Demand Distance Vector)protocol capable of detecting blackholes and malfunctioning benign nodes in WSNs,thereby avoiding them when delivering packets.The proposed version employs a network-based reputation system to select the best and most secure path to a destination.To achieve this goal,the proposed version utilizes the Watchdogs/Pathrater mechanisms in AODV to gather and broadcast reputations to all network nodes to build the network-based reputation system.To minimize the network overhead of the proposed approach,the paper uses reputation aggregator nodes only for forwarding reputation tables.Moreover,to reduce the overhead of updating reputation tables,the paper proposes three mechanisms,which are the prompt broadcast,the regular broadcast,and the light broadcast approaches.The proposed enhanced version has been designed to perform effectively in dynamic environments such as mobile WSNs where nodes,including blackholes,move continuously,which is considered a challenge for other protocols.Using the proposed enhanced protocol,a node evaluates the security of different routes to a destination and can select the most secure routing path.The paper provides an algorithm that explains the proposed protocol in detail and demonstrates a case study that shows the operations of calculating and updating reputation values when nodes move across different zones.Furthermore,the paper discusses the proposed approach’s overhead analysis to prove the proposed enhancement’s correctness and applicability.

Sustainable reputation of lithium-ion battery supplier and its impact on transaction equilibrium in the electric vehicle supply chain

In the lithium-ion battery(LIB)supply-chain,transactions involve several rounds of ordering,production and delivery between LIB suppliers and electric vehicle(EV)manufacturers.The sustainable performance of LIB suppliers,related to various characteristics,significantly affects the participants’sustainable reputations.The EV-LIB supply-chain transaction mechanism is explored from the perspective of the exchange economy comprehensively addressing both short-term economic profit and long-term sustainable reputation.Specifically,a“profit-reputation”utility function is proposed to reflect participants’expectations regarding cooperation profit and sustainable reputation.Additionally,an Edgeworth box model is developed to describe the participant’s balance determinations as a contract curve,revealing the Pareto conditions for mutually beneficial transactions based on sustainable performance.Furthermore,several principal-agent models are established to analyze the equilibrium of sustainable transactions within the EV-LIB supply-chain under varying dominance scenarios.A case study of an EV-LIB transaction is conducted to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness.This study aims to assist supply chain managers,researchers and decision-makers in exploring the role of participant’s sustainable reputation and its influence on supply-chain transaction and equilibrium,particularly in the context of designing cooperative contracts and negotiation process to foster sustainable supply chains.

The Reputation Model of Multi-Stage Dynamic Game

Aim To study the implicit restriction mechanism for hidden action in multi stage dynamic game. Methods A reputation model for restriction on repeated principal agent relationship was established by using the theory on principal agent problem in information economics and the method of game theory to study the implicit restriction mechanism for hidden action. Results and Conclusion It is proved that there exists implicit restriction mechanism for the multi stage principal agent relationship, some conditions for effective restriction are derived, the design methods of implicit restriction mechanism are presented.

SLCRM： Subjective Logic-Based Cross-Layer Reputation Mechanism for Wireless Mesh Networks

Wireless Mesh Networks （WMNs） are vulnerable to various security threats because of their special infrastructure and communication mode, wherein insider attacks are the most challenging issue. To address this problem and protect innocent users from malicious attacks, it is important to encourage cooperation and deter malicious behaviors. Reputation systems constitute a major category of techniques used for managing trust in distributed networks, and they are effective in characterizing and quantifying a node＇s behavior for WMNs. However, conventional layered reputation mechanisms ignore several key factors of reputation in other layers; therefore, they cannot provide optimal performance and accurate malicious node identification and isolation for WMNs. In this paper, we propose a novel dynamic reputation mechanism, SLCRM, which couples reputation systems with a cross-layer design and node-security-rating classification techniques to dynamically detect and restrict insider attacks. Simulation results show that in terms of network throughput, packet delivery ratio, malicious nodes＇ identification, and success rates, SI_CRM imple- ments security protection against insider attacks in a more dynamic, effective, and efficient manner than the subjective logic and uncertainty-based reputation model and the familiarity-based reputation model.

SemTrust: A Semantic Reputation System in P2P-Based Semantic Web

A reputation mechanism is introduced in P2P- based Semantic Web to solve the problem of lacking trust. It enables Semantic Web to utilize reputation information based on semantic similarity of peers in the network. This approach is evaluated in a simulation of a content sharing system and the experiments show that the system with reputation mechanism outperforms the system without it.

A Formal Reputation System for Trusting Wireless Sensor Network

In this paper, a formal system is proposed based on beta reputation for the development of trustworthy wireless sensor networks （FRS-TWSN）. Following this approach, key concepts related to reputation are formal described step by step for wireless sensor networks where sensor nodes maintain reputation for other sensors and use it to evaluate their trustworthiness. By proving some properties of beta reputation system, the beta distribution is founded to fit well to describe reputation system. Also, a case system is developed within this framework for reputation representation, updates and integration. Simulation results show this scheme not only can keep stable reputation but also can prevent the system from some attacks as bad mouthing and reputation cheating.

Reputation-Based Cooperative Spectrum Sensing Algorithm for Mobile Cognitive Radio Networks

Identifying malicious users accurately in cognitive radio networks(CRNs) is the guarantee for excellent detection performance. However, existing algorithms fail to take the mobility of secondary users into consideration. If applied directly in mobile CRNs, those conventional algorithms would overly punish reliable users at extremely bad or good locations, leading to an obvious decrease in detection performance. To overcome this problem, we divide the whole area of interest into several cells to consider the location diversity of the network. Each user's reputation score is updated after each sensing slot and is used for identifying whether it is malicious or not. If so, it would be removed away. And then our algorithm assigns users in cells with better channel conditions, i.e. larger signal-to-noise ratios(SNRs), with larger weighting coefficients, without requiring the prior information of SNR. Detailed analysis about the validity of our algorithm is presented. The simulation results show that in a CRN with 60 mobile secondary users, among which, 18 are malicious, our solution has an improvement of detection probability by 0.97-d B and 3.57-d B when false alarm probability is 0.1, compared with a conventional trust-value-based algorithm and a trusted collaborative spectrum sensing for mobile CRNs, respectively.

A Novel Negative Multinomial Distribution Based Energy-Efficient Reputation Modeling for Wireless Sensor Networks(WSNs)

In wireless sensor networks(WSNs),nodes are usually powered by batteries.Since the energy consumption directly impacts the network lifespan,energy saving is a vital issue in WSNs,especially in the designing phase of cryptographic algorithms.As a complementary mechanism,reputation has been applied to WSNs.Different from most reputation schemes that were based on beta distribution,negative multinomial distribution was deduced and its feasibility in the reputation modeling was proved.Through comparison tests with beta distribution based reputation in terms of the update computation,results show that the proposed method in this research is more energy-efficient for the reputation update and thus can better prolong the lifespan of WSNs.

The Effect of Reputation to the Moral Hazard in C2C E-Market with Game Theory

It is well known that the reputation is the basis of a seller to survive and gain trust from customers in a competitive business environment. But as the existence of information asymmetry between buyer and seller, the moral hazard problem is the key obstacle that impedes the benefits of related shareholders and reduces the efficiency of total market. It is crucial to design a control mechanism to avoid the negative impact of moral hazard. This paper studies the principal and agent relationship between buyer and seller in C2C e-market;because of the influence of information asymmetry, many customers suffered from being cheated by sellers with defective products in practice. These frequent cases will deteriorate long term relationship between sellers and buyers. Here we focus on the analysis of the causes of moral risks and the effect of reputation on oral risk with repeated game theory. The purpose of this paper is to help both firms and customers effectively avoid morality risk and realize a win-win situation.

A Dynamic Reputation–based Consensus Mechanism for Blockchain

In recent years,Blockchain is gaining prominence as a hot topic in academic research.However,the consensus mechanism of blockchain has been criticized in terms of energy consumption and performance.Although Proof-of-Authority(PoA)consensus mechanism,as a lightweight consensus mechanism,is more efficient than traditional Proof-of-Work(PoW)and Proof-of-Stake(PoS),it suffers from the problem of centralization.To this end,on account of analyzing the shortcomings of existing consensus mechanisms,this paper proposes a dynamic reputation-based consensus mechanism for blockchain.This scheme allows nodes with reputation value higher than a threshold apply to become a monitoring node,which can monitor the behavior of validators in case that validators with excessive power cause harm to the blockchain network.At the same time,the reputation evaluation algorithm is also introduced to select nodes with high reputation to become validators in the network,thus increasing the cost of malicious behavior.In each consensus cycle,validators and monitoring nodes are dynamically updated according to the reputation value.Through security analysis,it is demonstrated that the scheme can resist the attacks of malicious nodes in the blockchain network.By simulation experiments and analysis of the scheme,the result verifies that the mechanism can effectively improve the fault tolerance of the consensus mechanism,reduce the time of consensus to guarantee the security of the system.

Reputation-Based Hierarchically Cooperative Spectrum Sensing Scheme in Cognitive Radio Networks

Cooperative spectrum sensing in cog- nitive radio is investigated to improve the det- ection performance of Primary User （PU）. Meanwhile, cluster-based hierarchical coop- eration is introduced for reducing the overhead as well as maintaining a certain level of sens- ing performance. However, in existing hierar- chically cooperative spectrum sensing algo- rithms, the robustness problem of the system is seldom considered. In this paper, we pro- pose a reputation-based hierarchically coop- erative spectrum sensing scheme in Cognitive Radio Networks （CRNs）. Before spectrum sensing, clusters are grouped based on the location correlation coefficients of Secondary Users （SUs）. In the proposed scheme, there are two levels of cooperation, the first one is performed within a cluster and the second one is carried out among clusters. With the reputa- tion mechanism and modified MAJORITY rule in the second level cooperation, the pro- posed scheme can not only relieve the influ- ence of the shadowing, but also eliminate the impact of the PU emulation attack on a rela- tively large scale. Simulation results show that, in the scenarios with deep-shadowing or mul- tiple attacked SUs, our proposed scheme ach- ieves a better tradeoff between the system robustness and the energy saving compared with those conventionally cooperative sensing schemes.

A Reputation-Based Multi-Agent Model for Network Resource Selection

Because of the anonymity and openness of online transactions and the richness of network resources, the problems of the credibility of the online trading and the exact selection of network resources have become acute. For this reason, a reputation-based multi-agent model for network resource selection (RMNRS) is presented. The model divides the network into numbers of trust domains. Each domain has one domain-agent and several entity-agents. The model prevents the inconsistency of information that is maintained by differ-ent agents through the periodically communication between the agents. The model enables the consumers to receive responses from agents significantly quicker than that of traditional models, because the global reputation values of service providers and consumers are evaluated and updated dynamically after each transaction. And the model allocates two global reputation values to each entity and takes the recognition value that how much the service provider knows the service into account. In order to make users choose the best matching services and give users with trusted services, the model also takes the similarity between services into account and uses the similarity degree to amend the integration reputation value with harmonic-mean. Finally, the effectiveness and feasibility of this model is illustrated by the experiment.

The 2 ℃ Global Temperature Target and the Evolution of the Long-TermGoal of Addressing Climate Change-From the United Nations FrameworkConvention on Climate Change to the Paris Agreement

The Paris Agreement proposed to keep the increase in global average temperature to well below 2 ℃ abovepre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 ℃ above pre-industriallevels. It was thus the first international treaty to endow the 2 ℃ global temperature target with legal effect.The qualitative expression of the ultimate objective in Article 2 of the United Nations Framework Conventionon Climate Change （UNFCCC） has now evolved into the numerical temperature rise target in Article 2 of theParis Agreement. Starting with the Second Assessment Report （SAR） of the Intergovernmental Panel on Cli-mate Change （IPCC）, an important task for subsequent assessments has been to provide scientific informa-tion to help determine the quantified long-term goal for UNFCCC negotiation. However, due to involvementin the value judgment within the scope of non-scientific assessment, the IPCC has never scientifically af-firmed the unacceptable extent of global temperature rise. The setting of the long-term goal for addressingclimate change has been a long process, and the 2 ℃ global temperature target is the political consensuson the basis of scientific assessment. This article analyzes the evolution of the long-term global goal foraddressing climate change and its impact on scientific assessment, negotiation processes, and global low-carbon development, from aspects of the origin of the target, the series of assessments carried out by the 1PCCfocusing on Article 2 of the UNFCCC, and the promotion of the global temperature goal at the political level.

Influence of Tourists′ Environmental Tropisms on Their Attitudes to Tourism and Nature Conservation in Natural Tourist Destinations: A Case Study of Jiuzhaigou National Park in China

People′s environmental tropism has an effect on their understanding of tourism-nature relationship,and also influences their attitudes to natural resources utilization and environmental protection.Taking Jiuzhaigou National Park of China as a study case,the authors conducted some quantitative analyses with the tools of SPSS 16.0 and LISREL 8.7,to explore the influence of tourists′ environmental tropism on their attitudes to tourism and nature conservation in the natural tourist destination.Three hypotheses and the theoretic model of influences of tourists′ environmental tropism on their attitudes to tourism and nature conservation have been tested and accepted based on the Structural Equation Model analysis on survey data collected in Jiuzhaigou National Park of China.Some conclusions were drawn as follows: 1) tourists′ human-prioritized concept influences their cognition to tourism-nature relationship.This concept has a positive influence on their supportive attitudes to tourism,but a negative influence on their attitudes to nature conservation;2) tourists′ human-nature coordination concept has a positive influence on their supportive attitudes to both tourism and nature conservation,especially to the latter.This paper generally proves that human′s environmental tropism does have an influence on their attitudes to tourism and nature conservation in natural tourist destinations.

Blockchain-Empowered Token-Based Access Control System with User Reputation Evaluation

Currently,data security and privacy protection are becoming more and more important.Access control is a method of authorization for users through predefined policies.Token-based access control(TBAC)enhances the manageability of authorization through the token.However,traditional access control policies lack the ability to dynamically adjust based on user access behavior.Incorporating user reputation evaluation into access control can provide valuable feedback to enhance system security and flexibility.As a result,this paper proposes a blockchain-empowered TBAC system and introduces a user reputation evaluation module to provide feedback on access control.The TBAC system divides the access control process into three stages:policy upload,token request,and resource request.The user reputation evaluation module evaluates the user’s token reputation and resource reputation for the token request and resource request stages of the TBAC system.The proposed system is implemented using the Hyperledger Fabric blockchain.The TBAC system is evaluated to prove that it has high processing performance.The user reputation evaluation model is proved to be more conservative and sensitive by comparative study with other methods.In addition,the security analysis shows that the TBAC system has a certain anti-attack ability and can maintain stable operation under the Distributed Denial of Service(DDoS)attack environment.

BRICS nations and the opportunities for community physical activity interventions

Decreases in physical activity(PA)in the populations of developing countries have occurred alongside the rapidly changing urban form,greater availability of automobiles,pollution,shifts in the nature of work,and other factors.

基于Reputation与Credit的混合激励算法

针对Reputation机制中缺乏对高信誉值节点的奖励,以及Credit机制中静止的虚拟银行(VB:Virtual Bank)部署困难,同时交易价格无区分性等导致的激励效果不佳的问题,文中提出了一种新的基于Reputation和Credit的混合激励算法RCH(Reputation and Credit based Hybrid incentive algorism)。RCH主要是采取一种P2P的模式(无需VB),根据提供转发服务节点与消息目的节点的亲密度以及接受转发服务节点的自私度来完成对不同服务质量,不同服务对象的区别定价,从而鼓励理性地自私节点更多的去帮助其他节点转发消息。通过理论分析和仿真实验得出:该算法与Reputation机制和Credit机制相比,在激励效果方面得到了较大的改善,最终都体现在交付率,平均延迟等指标的优化上。

The impact of health expenditures on public health in BRICS nations

1.Peculiarity of the BRICS emerging economies Since the late 1980s,accelerated globalization has provided economic growth opportunities in mature and emerging economies.The rapidly developing nations of Brazil,Russia,India,China,and South Africa(BRICS nations)have a combined economic output that makes BRICS countries the world's major emerging economies.