ContextGraph: Simulation tool for Hierarchical Model of Trust In Context

ContextGraph: Simulation tool for HMTC

The ContextGraph simulation tool can be used to simulate and describe how an HMTC model works. The main contribution of this tool is a simulation trust re-computation algorithm, which demonstrates how trust from one context can be used to inferring trust to other contexts in graph. This is useful in cases when a trust into some entity is known partially or is known only into some context(s).

The ContextGraph tool is developed in Java language and is provided as open source (see Licence section for more information). Key features of ContextGraph tool are:

Modeling HMTC concept.
Simulate trust update/inferr algorithm in HMTC.
Save/load simulation model into/from GraphML format.
Open source and multi-platform.

Hierarchical Model of Trust In Contexts (HMTC)

Our Hierarchical Model of Trust in Contexts (HMTC) [SZ10c] approach addresses some open questions in context sensitive trust scenario like context transference, incomplete information or side effects. With using multilevel context graph, we are able to model relation between different contexts and make decision about agent qualities in different aspects of his/her future behaviour.

HMTC model is intended to be used for agent’s reasoning which is based on some beliefs about some qualities of other elements in the system. Our concept supposes that each element in the system has different qualities which are not completely independent and these qualities are correlated together with using specification and generalisation – some qualities or attributes in lower abstraction level can create one or more common qualities in higher abstraction level. Entities in the system can be rated in these different qualities and agent’s reasoning is done by combination of different beliefs in different qualities with using connections in such qualities.

Detailed information about HMTC and multi-context trust concept can be found in related publications section.

Documentation

Requirements

Java 1.6 (or higher)
(optional for compiling) NetBeans 6.8 (or higher)

Installation

No installation is required, just download binary or source code package and unpack. For running binary Java package, run the following command in command line:

java -jar "ContextGraph.jar"

Package with source code contains complete NetBeans project (source code + NetBeans metadata) to add project into NetBeans IDE.

Related publications

[SZ10b] ContextGraph: Simulation Tool for Hierarchical Model of Trust in Context: Jan Samek, František Zbořil. ContextGraph: Simulation Tool for Hierarchical Model of Trust in Context. In Proceedings of CSE 2010 International Scientific Conference on Computer Science and Engineering, Vol. 1, pages 265–270. The University of Technology Košice, 2010.
[SZ10c] Hierarchical model of trust in contexts: Jan Samek, František Zbořil. Hierarchical model of trust in contexts. In Networked Digital Technologies, volume 88 of Communications in Computer and Information Science (CCIS), pages 356–365. Springer Verlag, 2010.
[SZ10a] Algorithmic Evaluation of Trust in Multilevel Model: Jan Samek, František Zbořil. Algorithmic Evaluation of Trust in Multilevel Model. In EUROSIM 2010 - 7th EUROSIM Congeres on Modelling and Simulation. Czech Technical University in Prague, 2010.
[SZM10a] Event Driven Multi-context Trust Model: Jan Samek, František Zbořil, Ondřej Malačka. Event Driven Multi-context Trust Model In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Intelligent Systems Design and Applications. Cairo, EG, 2010. IEEE CS, p. 911-917, ISBN 978-1-4244-8135-4.

GraphML format

GraphML is a XML based comprehensive and easy-to-use file format for graphs. It consists of a language core to describe the structural properties of a graph and a flexible extension mechanism to add application-specific data. Its main features include support of

directed, undirected, and mixed graphs,
hypergraphs,
hierarchical graphs,
graphical representations,
references to external data,
application-specific attribute data, and
light-weight parsers.

ContextGraph implements base syntax of GraphML format to save/load HMTC hierarchical graph to/from file.

Screenshots

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Download

Binary (Java bytecode) distribution: contextgraph-bin-v0.1.80.tgz
Source code distribution: contextgraph-src-v0.1.80.tgz

Licence

This software is licensed under the BUT OPEN SOURCE LICENCE (EN, CZ), full text of the licence follows:

BUT OPEN SOURCE LICENCE
Version 1.
Copyright (c) 2010, Brno University of Technology, Antonínská 548/1, 601 90, Czech Republic

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The part of this software contains source code from Blueprints (tinkerpop.com) library to hadle GraphML format. This source code is licensed under BSD License, full text of the licence follows:

Copyright (c) 2009-2011, TinkerPop [http://tinkerpop.com]
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Authors

Jan Samek (primary contact): http://www.fit.vutbr.cz/~samejan/; samejan@fit.vutbr.cz
František Zbořil: http://www.fit.vutbr.cz/~zborilf/; zborilf@fit.vutbr.cz
Ondřej Malačka: http://www.fit.vutbr.cz/~imalacka/; imalacka@fit.vutbr.cz

Bug reporting

... via email to samejan@fit.vutbr.cz

Acknowledgement

This project was developed with support coming from:

The grant BUT FIT-10-S-1 of the Brno University of Technology, Faculty of Information Technology.
The project GAČR GD102/09/H042 of the Czech Science Foundation.
The research plan CEZ MSM 0021630528 of the Czech Ministry of Education.
The DC1-VZ research group of Securing information systems from malicious attacks.

News

(05/2011) License changed, for more information, see license section. Current version is now 0.1.80.

(12/2010) Released new version of ContexGraph tool with events visualisation and events roll-backing.

(11/2010) Added new publication "Event Driven Multi-context Trust Model" related to ContextGraph tool, see [SZM10a] for more details.

ContextGraph v0.1.80

Download binary

- latest binary Java bytecode distribution:

contextgraph-bin-v0.1.80.tgz

Download source code

- complete source code with NetBeans IDE metadata for adding into project:

contextgraph-src-v0.1.80.tgz

For more downloads go to Download section.

ContextGraph: Simulation tool for Hierarchical Model of Trust In Contexts