The Reputation, Opinion, Credibility and Quality (ROCQ) Scheme

An implicit assumption of trust in the participants is at the basis of most Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks. However, in practice, not all participants are benign or cooperative. Identifying such peers is critical to the smooth and effective functioning of a P2P network. In this paper, we present the ROCQ mechanism, a reputation-based trust management system that computes the trustworthiness of peers on the basis of transaction-based feedback. The ROCQ model combines four parameters: Reputation (R) or a peer's global trust rating, Opinion (O) formed by a peer's first-hand interactions, Credibility (C) of a reporting peer and Quality (Q) or the confidence a reporting peer puts on the judgement it provides. We then present a distributed implementation of our scheme over FreePastry, a structured P2P network. Experimental results considering different models for malicious behavior indicate the contexts in which the ROCQ scheme performs better than existing schemes

Clinical and Patient-Reported Outcomes of Primary Selective Laser Trabeculoplasty in Open Angle Glaucoma & Ocular Hypertension

Aims To investigate the clinical efficacy of primary selective laser trabeculoplasty (SLT) as initial therapy in newly-diagnosed treatment-naïve open-angle-glaucoma (OAG)/ ocular hypertension (OHT) patients. To also investigate patient-reported outcome measures related to health-related quality of life (HRQL) between primary SLT and topical medication. Methods Pre-specified and post-hoc analyses performed using data derived from the Laser in Glaucoma and Ocular Hypertension (‘LiGHT’) Trial, a multi-centre randomised-controlled trial. Results 718 patients (1235 eyes) were randomised: 356 patients (613 eyes) were allocated to SLT (Laser-1st pathway) and 362 patients (622 eyes) to medical treatment (Medicine-1st pathway). Early absolute IOP-lowering following primary SLT was no different between OHT and OAG eyes (adjusted mean difference = -0.05mmHg; 95% confidence interval (CI) -0.6 to 0.5mmHg; p=0.85). No difference was noted in early absolute IOP-lowering between topical medication and primary SLT (adjusted mean difference = -0.1mmHg; 95% CI, -0.6 to 0.4mmHg; p=0.67). At 36-months, 536 eyes (87.7% of 611 eyes) of 314 patients (88.5% of 355 patients) were available for analysis in Laser-1st pathway. 74.6% of eyes (400 eyes) treated with primary SLT achieved drop-free “disease-control” at 36-months; 58.2% (312 eyes) following single SLT. 6 eyes of 6 patients experienced immediate post-laser IOP spike with 1 eye requiring treatment. 115 eyes of 90 patients received repeat SLT during the first 18 months of the trial. Repeat treatment maintained drop-free IOP control in 67% of these eyes for a subsequent 18 months, with no clinically-relevant adverse events. At 36-months, there was no significant difference in all HRQL measures between the treatment arms, including EQ-5D-5L (adjusted mean difference = 0.01; 95% CI, –0.01 to 0.03; p=0.23). Conclusions This work supports primary SLT to be a safe and clinically effective alternative to topical treatment that could be offered as a first-line IOP lowering treatment to patients with OAG or OHT

"May I borrow Your Filter?" Exchanging Filters to Combat Spam in a Community

Leveraging social networks in computer systems can be effective in dealing with a number of trust and security issues. Spam is one such issue where the "wisdom of crowds" can be harnessed by mining the collective knowledge of ordinary individuals. In this paper, we present a mechanism through which members of a virtual community can exchange information to combat spam. Previous attempts at collaborative spam filtering have concentrated on digest-based indexing techniques to share digests or fingerprints of emails that are known to be spam. We take a different approach and allow users to share their spam filters instead, thus dramatically reducing the amount of traffic generated in the network. The resultant diversity in the filters and cooperation in a community allows it to respond to spam in an autonomic fashion. As a test case for exchanging filters we use the popular SpamAssassin spam filtering software and show that exchanging spam filters provides an alternative method to improve spam filtering performance

Beauty Contest and Social Value of Fintech: An Economic Analysis

The past decade has witnessed a financial technology (Fintech) revolution. With the advent of Fintech in trading markets, many technology startups are using social media to gauge investors’ sentiment, as well as to detect events quickly, which in turn could impact stock prices and affect the efficiency of financial markets. Another example of Fintech that is enabled by the aggregation of opinions is social trading platforms. These platforms are financial counterparts of social networks where people can create an online profile and share information about investments and trading in financial instruments such as stocks and cryptocurrencies with other members of the platform. Online platforms like Sharewise and Estimize specialize in aggregating the opinions and predictions of all its users to come up with a target price for a stock, thus enabling the users to gain market insights from public opinion. This shift in trading has led to the emergence of a new class of investors who trade not only based on their own knowledge (or beliefs) about the market but also on that of the crowd’s opinion. Investors who follow public information about the fundamental price and their own private information are classified as first-order-beliefs traders while investors who use private information along with information gained from using such Fintech product are classified as higher-order-beliefs traders. The Fintech product captures the sentiment of other investors and experts by aggregating their opinions and predictions expressed on various social media platforms. Following the insight of Keynes (1936) on financial markets being akin to a beauty contest, where some people grade contestants based on who they think will be attractive to others, we model the market where a certain fraction of traders is employing the beauty-contest paradigm, using the services offered by Fintech firms, to form higher-order beliefs. We then establish the equilibrium in the market and examine its different properties. We also analyze how higher-order beliefs affect market efficiency and social welfare of investors. In the process, we answer the following research questions: is this shift beneficial for the market (in terms of efficiency) and the individual investors? And, if so, under what conditions and circumstances? Further, is there any limit to the number of Fintech investors (as a fraction of all investors) in the market so that social welfare is maximized? We find that higher-order beliefs tend to reduce market efficiency because public information is over-weighted. Increased precision of private information always enhances market efficiency; however, when public information is relatively noisy, increased precision of public information is detrimental to market efficiency. We also examine the effect of relative precision of public information to private information and fraction of Fintech investors in the market on ex-ante wealth of investors. Since accounting disclosure is a main source of public information, our results highlight that the use of Fintech in financial trading can dramatically affect the optimal level of accounting disclosure (i.e., transparency)

Parameter Enhancement and Size Reduction using DGS of L Band Antenna

Proposed research is the outcome of the detailed literature review and intensive research carried out in the field of parameter improvement of antenna using defected ground structure. In this paper a patch antenna is proposed with the introduction of a slit ring DGS structure to modify its parameters and reduce the size of antenna. Antenna was designed and simulated at 1.95GHz initially but after implementing DGS its radiation efficiency is shifted to 1.58GHz which theoretically a sign of size reduction of antenna. DGS is actually a cut made in the ground plane of the antenna which create a disturbance in radiating power, this disturbance in the ground basically distributes the radiating frequency and make antenna more efficient than ever before

Colour removal and biodegradability enhancement of biomethanated spent wash from distillery using wet oxidation treatment

503-508In India, high strength spent wash (SW) produced from alcohol distilleries is preferably treated by biomethanation process. However, biomethanated  SW (BMSW) still contains intensified dark brown colour, high chemical oxygen demand (COD) and poor biodegradability which requires further treatment before disposal. Wet oxidation (WO) is considered an effective treatment for high strength non-biodegradable wastewaters (COD > 10 g/L). Hence, the present study explored WO of BMSW (pH = 5.7, COD = 65.5 g/L, and total organic carbon (TOC) = 23.5 g/L) in a high pressure batch reactor (0.7 L capacity) at temperatures ranging from 160-220°C and oxygen pressure of 1.1 MPa. At 220°C temperature, TOC, COD and color removals of 39%, 59% and 90%, respectively, were observed after 3 h of reaction period. Meanwhile, biodegradability index (BI) was enhanced from 0.27 to 0.81. Carbon balance calculations showed that the oxidation reaction contribution in TOC removal was enhanced with increase in temperature (64 – 92% of total carbon removal). Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) analysis suggested the precipitation of carbonyl group and nitrogen containing compounds. During the reaction, volatile fatty acids (oxalic acid, malonic acid and acetic acid) formation was also confirmed in the treated wastewater