Title: An improved trust model in agent-mediated e-commerce

Authors: Zili Zhang, Min Zhou, Ping Wang

Addresses: Intelligent Software and Software Engineering Laboratory, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China. ' Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Manukau Institute of Technology, New Zealand. ' Intelligent Software and Software Engineering Laboratory, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China

Abstract: Trust is a fundamental issue in multiagent systems, especially in agent-mediated e-commence. The trust model plays an important role in determining who and how to interact in open and dynamic environments. To this end, many trust models have been developed. Based on the confidence–reputation model proposed by other researchers, an improved trust model is discussed. The original model was enhanced in two aspects: (1) when evaluating the trustworthiness of target agents, the reliability of the witness itself is taken into account and further aggregated by Dempster-Shafer evidence theory and (2) the ontological property of trust is considered, which implies that trust can be calculated more precisely. A case study is provided to show the effectiveness of the improved model.

Keywords: multi-agent systems; MAS; confidence; reputation; trust management; e-commence; electronic commerce; agent-based systems; trust models; trustworthiness; ontology.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISTA.2008.017272

International Journal of Intelligent Systems Technologies and Applications, 2008 Vol.4 No.3/4, pp.271 - 284

Published online: 22 Feb 2008 *

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