290,822 research outputs found

    A social network assessment of generalized trust: Turkey in comparative perspective

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    Generalized trust is about trust in people we do not know. It refers to a general optimism and faith in the good will of people at large. It is among the significant civic attitudes that relate to democratic performance because it allows for citizen level association and participation. Turkey ranks low in terms of generalized trust. The present dissertation aims to test the hypotheses set forth by the social capital literature regarding the social network underpinnings of generalized trust for the Turkish case. It employs social network measures which are based on tie level information. The dissertation seeks to answer questions such as: ''Do social networks influence generalized trust? Can we talk about the relevance of social networks and relational ties for low trust countries such as Turkey? How do country level differences interact with social network influence on generalized trust?'' In order to answer these questions, a survey analysis which was conducted in 2008-2009 and was representative of Turkey's urban population, is used. Findings from the Turkish case are discussed within a comparative framework. A cross-country analysis, which is based on the International Social Survey Program's (ISSP) survey of 2001 on social networks, is used for comparison. The study shows the relevance of social networks for generalized trust however, it further points out the need for qualifications of social networks according to the network boundary and the tie properties. Also, it emphasizes the importance of the socio-political context to make better sense of social network influence on generalized trust

    Leveraging Cooperative Extension\u27s Competitive Advantages for Success in 2019 and Beyond

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    Many academic institutions of higher education are experiencing fluctuating or declining levels of public support and funding. One approach to framing potential solutions is identifying the competitive advantages academic institutions have in the marketplace. The advantages for Extension can be described in the context of increasing effectiveness, efficiency, and long-term impact. As an organization, we can focus on 10 competitive advantages related to brand, product, impact, leveraged resources, relevance, objectivity, approach, networks, trust, and unique expertise. The future success of Extension will require that we capitalize on these competitive advantages in visionary and innovative ways to maintain our niche in the marketplace

    An agent-driven semantical identifier using radial basis neural networks and reinforcement learning

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    Due to the huge availability of documents in digital form, and the deception possibility raise bound to the essence of digital documents and the way they are spread, the authorship attribution problem has constantly increased its relevance. Nowadays, authorship attribution,for both information retrieval and analysis, has gained great importance in the context of security, trust and copyright preservation. This work proposes an innovative multi-agent driven machine learning technique that has been developed for authorship attribution. By means of a preprocessing for word-grouping and time-period related analysis of the common lexicon, we determine a bias reference level for the recurrence frequency of the words within analysed texts, and then train a Radial Basis Neural Networks (RBPNN)-based classifier to identify the correct author. The main advantage of the proposed approach lies in the generality of the semantic analysis, which can be applied to different contexts and lexical domains, without requiring any modification. Moreover, the proposed system is able to incorporate an external input, meant to tune the classifier, and then self-adjust by means of continuous learning reinforcement.Comment: Published on: Proceedings of the XV Workshop "Dagli Oggetti agli Agenti" (WOA 2014), Catania, Italy, Sepember. 25-26, 201

    TRULLO - local trust bootstrapping for ubiquitous devices

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    Handheld devices have become sufficiently powerful that it is easy to create, disseminate, and access digital content (e.g., photos, videos) using them. The volume of such content is growing rapidly and, from the perspective of each user, selecting relevant content is key. To this end, each user may run a trust model - a software agent that keeps track of who disseminates content that its user finds relevant. This agent does so by assigning an initial trust value to each producer for a specific category (context); then, whenever it receives new content, the agent rates the content and accordingly updates its trust value for the producer in the content category. However, a problem with such an approach is that, as the number of content categories increases, so does the number of trust values to be initially set. This paper focuses on how to effectively set initial trust values. The most sophisticated of the current solutions employ predefined context ontologies, using which initial trust in a given context is set based on that already held in similar contexts. However, universally accepted (and time invariant) ontologies are rarely found in practice. For this reason, we propose a mechanism called TRULLO (TRUst bootstrapping by Latently Lifting cOntext) that assigns initial trust values based only on local information (on the ratings of its user’s past experiences) and that, as such, does not rely on third-party recommendations. We evaluate the effectiveness of TRULLO by simulating its use in an informal antique market setting. We also evaluate the computational cost of a J2ME implementation of TRULLO on a mobile phone

    Sustainability experiments in the agri-food system : uncovering the factors of new governance and collaboration success

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    In recent years, research, society and industry recognize the need to transform the agri-food system towards sustainability. Within this process, sustainability experiments play a crucial role in transforming the structure, culture and practices. In literature, much attention is given to new business models, even if the transformation of conventional firms toward sustainability may offer opportunities to accelerate the transformation. Further acceleration could be achieved through collaboration of multiple actors across the agri-food system, but this calls for a systems approach. Therefore, we developed and applied a new sustainability experiment systems approach (SESA) consisting of an analytical framework that allows a reflective evaluation and cross-case analysis of multi-actor governance networks based on business and learning evaluation criteria. We performed a cross-case analysis of four agri-food sustainability experiments in Flanders to test and validate SESA. Hereby, the key factors of the success of collaboration and its performance were identified at the beginning of a sustainability experiment. Some of the key factors identified were risk sharing and the drivers to participate. We are convinced that these results may be used as an analytical tool for researchers, a tool to support and design new initiatives for policymakers, and a reflective tool for participating actors

    From Manifesta to Krypta: The Relevance of Categories for Trusting Others

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    In this paper we consider the special abilities needed by agents for assessing trust based on inference and reasoning. We analyze the case in which it is possible to infer trust towards unknown counterparts by reasoning on abstract classes or categories of agents shaped in a concrete application domain. We present a scenario of interacting agents providing a computational model implementing different strategies to assess trust. Assuming a medical domain, categories, including both competencies and dispositions of possible trustees, are exploited to infer trust towards possibly unknown counterparts. The proposed approach for the cognitive assessment of trust relies on agents' abilities to analyze heterogeneous information sources along different dimensions. Trust is inferred based on specific observable properties (Manifesta), namely explicitly readable signals indicating internal features (Krypta) regulating agents' behavior and effectiveness on specific tasks. Simulative experiments evaluate the performance of trusting agents adopting different strategies to delegate tasks to possibly unknown trustees, while experimental results show the relevance of this kind of cognitive ability in the case of open Multi Agent Systems

    The field of inter-organizational relations : a jungle or an Italian garden?

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    Each chapter in this Handbook contains an explicit assessment of priorities for future research that would extend and deepen an understanding of IOR. Given the diversity of contributions to this volume, it is perhaps not surprising that recommendations for future research are varied. And because the three sets of contributions start from different points-empirical manifestations, theoretical and disciplinary perspectives, and thematic interests-so the recommendations, too, might be expected to lead along different paths, 'cutting' and framing future research topics in different ways. Nevertheless, as others have suggested (Brass et al. 2005) it is possible to see some points of convergence across all three parts of the Handbook. We begin our discussion of the contributions and suggestions for the future by focusing on these points of convergence. We then look in turn at the specific ideas that emerge from, and relate to, the specific framings of each of the parts. Finally, we draw together insights about methodological issues

    Trust Based Participant Driven Privacy Control in Participatory Sensing

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    Widespread use of sensors and multisensory personal devices generate a lot of personal information. Sharing this information with others could help in various ways. However, this information may be misused when shared with all. Sharing of information between trusted parties overcomes this problem. This paper describes a model to share information based on interactions and opinions to build trust among peers. It also considers institutional and other controls, which influence the behaviour of the peers. The trust and control build confidence. The computed confidence bespeaks whether to reveal information or not thereby increasing trusted cooperation among peers.Comment: 14 page
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