Patent ID: 7707068

Claim:
A device for calculating trust values of n nodes (u i , i=1 to n), said device comprising: a processor configured to execute: a first unit for relating nodes with one another with arrows when the respective nodes have corresponding relations with one another; a second unit for obtaining P ij (i, j=1 to n) as a weight for an arrow directed from a node u i to a node u i on the basis of the corresponding relation between nodes u i and u i ; a third unit for determining P′=cP+(1−c)E, where c is a constant, E is a matrix in which each element is greater than 0 and the sum of each row is 1, P is a matrix in which an element of row i and column j is represented by P ij ; and a fourth unit for calculating a trust value TV(u i ) (i=1 to n) of each node u i as an eigen vector for an eigen value 1 of P′ T based on the following equation: TV ⁡ ( u i ) = ∑ u j ∈ BN ⁡ ( u i ) ⁢ P ij ′ ⁢ TV ⁡ ( u j ) where, u j εBN(u i ) represents a set of all nodes from which arrows directed at node u i start; and an output device for outputting information about a node or nodes with high trust values to a user to assist the user in identifying the trustworthy node or nodes among all said n nodes.